


The Best Way to Wake

by LeeHan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amputee Bucky Barnes, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Artist Steve Rogers, Bottom Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Not Found by Hydra, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Canon-Typical Violence, Embedded Images, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Implied Bottom Bucky Barnes, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Love Confessions, M/M, Moving In Together, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Steve Rogers, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovering Steve Rogers, Riding, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Therapy, Top Bucky Barnes, Topping from the Bottom, in reference to Steve crashing the plane, recovering Bucky Barnes, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 19:15:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17945552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeeHan/pseuds/LeeHan
Summary: James Buchanan Barnes lay in a glass pod in the middle of the table, frozen since he fell. Steve’s hands were on the glass before he realized he’d moved.“Wait, Captain!”“Get him out,” Steve whispered, his hands searching for a clasp, a keypad, something.“Captain, we need to keep him in stasis—““I said get him out!”





	The Best Way to Wake

**Author's Note:**

> It's my first Stucky fic! Enjoy!!!  
> Beta'd by AgentBarnes616 
> 
> Check out my tumblr for some Stucky fanart! https://leehanji.tumblr.com/tagged/my-art
> 
> Translation in Russian now available thanks to @rose_colored_boy!!! Перевод на русский: ficbook.net/readfic/8035082

_“—live from Dodgers Stadium in Brooklyn! Next up to the plate is Vic Lombardi. He had a great run last game—“_

Steve blinked slowly. Light was drifting lazily through the window to his right. He turned over. Across the room, a little radio on the dresser buzzed quietly. 

Where was Bucky? He loved baseball.

_“—struck out! The Dodgers have one more chance to bring this one home with Eddie Basinski—“_

Basinski. Bottom of the 9th. Home run with Rosen on 2nd. Dodgers win 4 to 2.

_“—here comes the pitch… and it’s a hit! It’s going long! Basinki’s rounding first, Rosen’s made it to 3rd… and it is gone! A home run for Basinski! Dodgers win 4 to 2!”_

Steve sat up. He’d heard that game before. They all had. In France with the Commandos. Bucky’d convinced Howard to get them access to the Dodgers’ games on their SSR radio. They were supposed to keep the channel open in case of incoming messages but it was cold and they were tired and Bucky just wanted to listen to some goddamn baseball. 

Something creaked outside. Steve pushed the thin blanket off his chest and placed his bare feet on the ground. He was in a thin metal bed. The nightstand held a small lamp and a glass of water. There was a chair in the corner with a jacket thrown over it. Out the window there were brick buildings and in the distance he could see the New York skyline.

It was wrong. 

Maybe he just wasn’t used to being dead yet. Drowning in icy water hadn’t been pleasant so Steve figured he could be forgiven for feeling off kilter. Whether he was in heaven or hell, he couldn’t say, but he supposed he’d find out soon enough. 

The door opened.

“Good morning, Captain.”

The woman had long brown hair. It was loose and hung around her shoulders in informal curls. She was dressed as an agent but her shirt hadn’t been pressed properly; it bunched where it was tucked into her long skirt, wrinkling the fabric, and she wasn’t wearing stockings. Peggy wouldn’t have been caught dead like that. 

“Or should I say, afternoon,” she said, checking her watch. 

“Why are you dressed like that?” Steve asked, his voice felt oddly rough.

The woman blinked at him.

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you dressed like that?” Steve repeated, gesturing to her general untidiness.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

It didn’t make sense. If this was heaven, shouldn’t everything be perfect? Where was Bucky?

“Where’s Bucky?”

“Captain,” the woman’s eyes flicked over his shoulder, “You’ve been asleep for some time—“

“Where’s Bucky?”

Steve stood and took a step toward her. This was all wrong. Bucky was supposed to be here. He made for the door but before he could reach it a man burst in. At least Steve thought it was a man. He was covered from head to toe in strange black armor. The helmet that covered his face was made of with shiny black glass. There was a gun at his hip.

Hell then. 

“Captain, calm down,” the woman said, grabbing his arm as if she could hold him back.

Steve shook her off easily and a strong kick to the man’s sternum sent him flying back through the door, which splintered like toothpicks. Steve didn’t think twice before running. Outside the wood floor turned concrete. He was on some kind of set. The wall was illuminated with a huge picture of New York. The room he had been in was just a box.

“Bucky?” He shouted, running toward what he thought might be an exit.

“Captain Rogers!”

More men in black armor were scuttling toward him like insects. One grabbed him from behind. Steve didn’t think he just reacted. By the time that one was on the ground two more were in front of him. One of their visors cracked against his fist. The other got a punch to the stomach and an elbow to the back of his neck when he doubled over. Eight more swarmed around him. 

Too many. 

He didn’t have any of his gear. Just a white t-shirt and some thin pants. So he ran. He kicked open the first door he came to and stumbled out into a crowded foyer. Women and men in suits turned to look as he ran past, he saw some touch their ears before beginning to chase after him. He kept going until he burst out onto a bright street. There were buildings on either side: brick apartments. The street was lined with cars but they were sleek and streamlined, chrome bumpers gone, and vividly colored like something out of Bucky’s sci-fi novels. He picked a direction and took off. He could still hear shouting behind him so he didn’t look back. A woman with a dog turned the corner ahead. She was wearing tight black pants and an even tighter, bright pink top that left her whole stomach exposed. She carried a neon green bottle and there was some sort of machine attached to her arm with white cords plugged into her ears. The dog, a golden retriever, barked at him as he sprinted past, his mind reeling. Around the corner he was hit with a sight he hadn’t seen in a long time.

The Brooklyn bridge stood tall and proud in the distance, and beyond it, the skyline of New York City. 

Home, somehow. 

Steve paused on the corner and reoriented himself before running again, this time with a sense of where he was going.

Two blocks left, three blocks right, six blocks. 

He pushed past a woman with green hair, a man with giant metal earmuffs, and a girl with a shimmering magenta backpack. Everyone seemed to be holding thin metal cards with bright pictures and flashing colors. Steve ignored them. He had to. 

He turned off Flushing Avenue and froze. It was supposed to be there. The building, the home he’d made with Bucky.

“Bucky?”

The apartments were gone. Glass storefronts lined the street. People, families, came in and out with bags and tall white cups with straws sticking out of them. In the spot where Steve and Bucky once lived was something called a Sushi Bar. Steve didn’t know what that was or what it meant. He stumbled backwards as a woman with a complicated looking stroller barreled past him.

“You alright, sir?” 

Steve turned. A woman in a blue uniform with a gold badge was talking to him. 

Police. 

“I can’t recommend you walk around this area with no shoes on,” she said, gesturing at his dirty feet.

She sounded like she was from Brooklyn, that much was the same.

“Right, yeah,” Steve said, backing up again, “I’ll just, um, get some shoes.”

He hurried away, trying to look inconspicuous amongst the crowded street. As he turned another corner, three huge shiny black cars came screeching to a halt in front of him. Steve bolted.

“Captain Rogers!”

He ran. He kept running. He ran until he couldn’t run anymore. Until he stood on Brighton Beach, at the edge of the Atlantic, with bleeding feet and nowhere left to go. 

It was colder than he’d expected Hell to be, but at least he knew why Bucky wasn’t here. It was a good thing, he told himself, that meant Bucky had made it somewhere better.

“Captain Rogers.”

Steve didn’t turn. He’d heard the cars pull up ten minutes after he’d come to a halt with his toes in the rocky sand.

“My name is Colonel Nicholas Fury, Director of SHIELD. You would have known us as the Special Scientific Reserve.”

Steve said nothing. He heard the man, Fury, slowly getting closer. His agents fanned out behind them, trapping Steve against the edge of the sea. 

“Sorry about that little show back there. We couldn’t tell how delicate your mental state might be. We thought it best to break it to you slowly.”

He waited for Steve to say something but he didn’t.

“You’ve been asleep, Captain. For seventy three years.”

Last Steve remembered it was 1945. Seventy three years put them at 2017. The world of the tomorrow, Bucky would say.

“We won the war, in case you’re wondering,” Fury continued, “you and your friends played quite a part in that.”

Steve hadn’t wondered. He wouldn’t have gone down with that plane if he hadn’t thought the war was already won.

“You crashed in the Arctic. Froze solid in some type of suspended animation. You weren’t alive, but you didn’t die either.”

Not dead.

“It’s May 15th, 2017, Captain,” Fury said. A hand clasped his shoulder, “Welcome to the future.”

 

* * *

 

 

Steve sprinted through the lobby of Stark tower. Someone yelled at him as he leapt over the metal detector, completely bypassing the security checkpoint. He didn’t look back. 

“Jarvis!” He yelled.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Elevator!”

The Avengers-Only elevator at the far side of the lobby opened immediately.

“Conference room!” He yelled as he slid to a halt inside, jamming the “close door” button as many times as he could.

“Faster.”

“Captain, the elevator is moving as fast as it is safe—“

“I’m a genetically modified super soldier,” Steve interrupted, “Make it go faster.”

There was a pause.

“Yes, Captain.”

Steve felt his stomach drop as the elevator sped up. The elevator dinged and came to an aggressive stop in a matter of seconds. Steve burst out as the doors slid open and sprinted down the hallway, scraping the wall with his shield by accident. He’d lost his helmet somewhere on the street and he didn’t have time or mental capacity to swing his shield onto its holster so he dropped it. It clanged around on the ground behind him as he barreled through the door to the main conference room. 

The table was surrounded by people. Generals, SHIELD agents, the Avengers, and the ambassador to Switzerland. He shoved passed Tony and the rest parted easily until he had full view of the room. 

James Buchanan Barnes lay in a glass pod in the middle of the table. Steve’s hands were on the glass before he realized he’d moved.

“Wait, Captain!”

“Get him out,” Steve whispered, his hands searching for a clasp, a keypad, something.

“Captain, we need to keep him in stasis—“

“I said get him out!” Steve yelled. 

“Steve!” A hand grabbed his shoulder.

Steve turned his rage on a calm looking Bruce.

“Breathe.” Bruce took an exaggerated breath in and out.

Sam came up behind him and put his hand on Steve’s other shoulder. Steve realized his hands were shaking. His heart was beating so loudly he could barely hear the voices around him. He breathed. A few moments later Bruce let go. Steve turned to look back at the pod.

Bucky. 

A thin layer of frost covered his entire body. It sparkled across his straight nose, his sharp jaw, and the tips of his eyelashes. He was wearing the blue coat he’d fallen in and his short hair curled around his forehead like it always did. His head was tipped to the side and his right arm was bent up towards his face like he was sleeping. His left arm was missing. 

Steve pressed his forehead against the glass and let out a shaky breath.

“Is someone going to tell us what happened?” Tony asked from somewhere behind him.

“Sergeant Barnes was found in the Alps by construction workers digging out a tunnel for a new train line to Austria,” Fury began, “We know from HYDRA records that he was injected with a version of Dr. Erskine’s serum. According to the research done in 1944, the serum had minimal effects on Barnes, not altering his physical capabilities at all, but it seems that HYDRA got it close enough to keep him alive in the ice. We suspect he’s been in a form of stasis, the same as Captain Rogers was in the Arctic.”

“So, he’s alive,” Natasha reiterated, looking down at Bucky from the other side of the table, “after all this time.”

“Right now he’s somewhere in between,” Agent Coulson corrected, “we plan to defrost him the same way we did for the Captain.”

“None of that fake 1945 crap.”

Steve felt all eyes in the room turn on him.

“Captain, we need to ease him in—“

“Because that worked so well for me,” he snapped, lifting his head off the glass. “Being lied to makes it worse. I’m the only one who’s been through this so we do it my way.”

Steve stared up at Fury and did not yield. Fury nodded once.

“Your way.”

 

* * *

 

After he’d first woken up, Steve had been a recluse. He’d been quieter, more solemn, in the weeks after Bucky died, but that was nothing compared to waking up in 2017. He didn’t trust anyone. Not Fury, not SHIELD, not Howard’s kid, not the Widow, no one. They all knew too much about him and too little at the same time. They all had expectations so Steve met them and did little else. He stood tall proud in his uniform, he spoke with authority and restraint, he fought strategically and efficiently, and then he’d retreat to his floor in Stark’s kid’s building. He kept the lights off because they were too bright. He’d had the talking voice in the walls disabled. He spent most of his time in the bathroom because that was the only room he was sure had no bugs or cameras. 

The cameras bothered him the most. They had gotten so small and the picture was so clear. He’d found eighteen of them his first night in SHIELD custody. He tried not to let on that he’d found them because if SHIELD knew they’d just move them around and he’d have to find them again. He had a gun he’d quietly liberated from one of Fury’s men and he’d hidden it under the lid of the toilet tank. For weeks, the only way he could sleep was in the bathroom, with the gun in his hand, and the door barricaded shut with furniture from the living room. Every morning he’d wake up and wonder if the world around him was real or if he would walk out the door and find out that everything was just a facade. He’d stare out the huge floor to ceiling windows of the tower and wonder if it was just another one of Stark’s big screens projecting an image of a fake New York onto the glass.

It really was Hell. 

As the months passed, Steve relaxed. Tony was okay. He wasn’t Howard and he made that clear with every word. Steve tried to ignore the bits of his old friend that managed to peek through and sometimes found it easier to pretend that Howard and Tony weren’t related at all. Natasha was alright too. He didn’t trust her for a long time but even then she could always be trusted in her untrustworthiness. Clint was easier. He was relaxed, always ready to laugh, and sometimes he seemed just as sad as Steve. Bruce was probably his favorite—after Sam—because he didn’t want any part of the drama or politics. He just wanted to do his work in silence, eat good food, and not get his blood pressure up. Steve could understand that.

SHIELD was okay too. When he’d mentioned, offhand, to Bruce that his apartment was bugged he’d gone quiet, then marched up to the conference room where Fury had happened to be in a meeting with the World Security Council and demanded that all the cameras in Steve’s place be removed. Turned out, when Bruce made a request even SHIELD knew better than to deny him. Steve still wasn’t totally convinced that the cameras had been for his own benefit, or whatever SHIELD’s official statement was, but they were true to their word and Steve hadn’t found a camera since, nor had Tony or Natasha, who’d both done their own sweeps for him.

They had him back on missions after a while. They trained him in new methods of fighting, sometimes even managing to push his superhuman body to its limits, and he excelled. He went to almost every country in the world hunting down the remnants of HYDRA, since, as it turned out, even without the Red Skull they were an insidious bunch. 

When he wasn’t on missions, he tried to catch up with the rest of the world. He read about the end of the war, the arms race, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, everything he could find. He watched _Planet Earth_ and _Will & Grace_ and _Finding Nemo_. He went on runs, even though he didn’t need to, he drank beer with Clint even though it didn’t do anything to him, and he didn’t swear, even though sometimes he desperately wanted to.

His therapist, Dr. Yang, wasn’t happy about that. It had taken him months to trust her and even longer to believe their conversations weren’t being monitored. She said he was living a persona and Steve couldn’t argue. In the beginning it had been self defense. He didn’t know what SHIELD was or if the Avengers could be trusted or what any of them would do if he didn’t live up to their expectations. So when Tony mentioned he was the “all American golden boy” Steve didn’t correct him. He stopped swearing, he pretended to still be religious despite everything he’d seen during the war, and didn’t bother telling anyone that his birthday wasn’t actually the 4th of July. As time passed and trust was established, Steve couldn’t shake the Captain America persona. It was easy. It was safe. No one really knew him and they didn’t need to.

The only ones who knew the truth were Dr. Yang and Sam. Steve had no qualms admitting that Sam was the best thing that had happened to him since he’d woken up. Dr. Yang had been pushing him to go to group therapy sessions at the VA to help with his PTSD and eventually he’d caved just to get her to stop bringing it up. His plan had been to go, not enjoy himself, and leave, but then Sam had started talking. He was compassionate but never coddling, a realist but always positive, and gentle without skimming over the difficult truths. Steve had been sitting in the back during the meeting and he was pretty sure Sam hadn’t spotted him so when Steve saw him running through central park one morning, he decided he’d join in. He ran circles around Sam, teasing him when they passed and Sam’s indignant shouting spurred him on in a way that nothing had since Bucky had fallen. 

It was fun.

Steve went back for more sessions at the VA, eventually switching to different meetings so that he and Sam could be friends without the responsibility of being Steve’s counselor hanging over Sam’s head every time they spoke.

Steve still hadn’t sworn in front of him though. Sam definitely knew that a lot of his personality was an act, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to break the illusion. It was the last blanket of security he had. His last shred of privacy. The rest of his life was on display at the Smithsonian and was it really so terrible to want a little piece of himself to just be his? He’d shared so much—he’d given his life—so that people could be free, including himself. So what if Wikipedia had his birthday wrong?

Dr. Yang didn’t agree but it certainly wasn’t one of the things that kept Steve up at night.

 

* * *

 

With Bucky’s scheduled return to consciousness only two days away, Steve examined his apartment. He’d moved into Stark tower two weeks after he’d woken up and hadn’t changed a thing about in the fifteen months he’d lived there. He slept in the bed that was provided for him, he sat on the couch one of Tony’s minions had picked out, he cooked the food that appeared in his fridge every week, and he listened to the music Spotify told him he’d like.

He wondered what Bucky would think of it.

It was nothing like the apartment they shared after Steve’s mother had died in 1936—the one just off Flushing Avenue. They’d had a tiny one-bedroom apartment on the third floor with  squeaky windows that didn’t shut, a little iron boiler that hissed through the night, and peeling plaster ceilings that sprinkled dust on their heads when the people upstairs walked around too hard. It hadn’t been much but it was home. When Steve had imagined the war ending, that’s where he imagined returning to.

He pushed the thought from his mind. There was no point dwelling on it now. 

He examined his surroundings once again. It certainly looked nothing like the 40’s but it wasn’t as obscenely futuristic as some of the other rooms in Stark Tower. It was definitely better than the SHIELD infirmary and it was worlds away from the fake New York hospital Fury had saddled him with. 

It seemed as good a place as any to wake up.

 

* * *

 

“Okay, that’s everything,” Sam said as the last of the SHIELD doctors crowded into the elevator, “You sure you want to do this alone?”

Steve stared across his apartment and through the open door of his bedroom. Bucky lay there, breathing softly under the dark blue comforter.

“Yeah.” Steve took a deep breath, “Finding out he’s lost an arm is something I doubt he’ll want an audience for.”

Sam acquiesced easily and waited for the elevator to come back. 

“I’ll be down in the common area with the others,” Sam said, even though Steve already knew the plan, “You guys come down whenever you’re ready or text me if you need something.”

“Will do,” Steve smiled as best he could while still trying to keep one eye on his bedroom.

“Steve.” 

Steve looked up just in time to catch Sam’s hug.

“He’s going to be fine.”

Steve nodded and took a deep breath against Sam’s shoulder. Sam knew how important this was. He, of all people, knew exactly how Steve felt.

“Even when I had nothing I had Bucky,” he whispered shakily.

“I know.”

Sam squeezed him once more.

“Remember,” Sam said as he pulled away, “You’re no help to him if you don’t take care of yourself too.”

He knew Sam was referring to the fact that he’d barely slept the past few days, had barely eaten too. He was right, of course, but Steve found he just couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat, when he knew Bucky was lying there, waiting to wake up. He nodded all the same.

“I’ll do my best.”

The elevator returned and Sam gave Steve one last reassuring smile before the doors closed again and Steve was left alone with Bucky for the first time since 1945. 

He walked into his bedroom, leaving the door ajar, and sat down in the soft armchair he’d moved from the corner of the room to Bucky’s bedside. He stared silently down at Bucky’s sleeping face. The doctors had said not to wake him, just to let him stir naturally. 

Part of him wanted to cry; to just break down and sob about the fact that somehow, by some divine miracle, of all the people HYDRA had given the serum to, of all the people to end up frozen in the Alps, of all the people to have been found only a year after he was, it just happened to be the one Steve missed the most. His best friend, his family, his right hand. There was no one in the world he trusted more, no one he needed more— except perhaps his Ma. But it had been three excruciating days since Bucky had been lying in a tube on the conference table and Steve hadn’t shed a tear. He felt numb. It was too good to be true. Steve felt like the past 72 hours he’d just been sitting on the edge of his seat waiting for the other shoe to drop. What if the doctors were wrong and Bucky didn’t wake up? What if now that he was out of the ice his heart just gave out and he died? What if he woke up but didn’t remember anything? What if Steve woke up and this was all just some horrible dream? What if—

Bucky shifted.

Steve froze, his heart picking up its already frantic pace. He quickly did a final scan of the room. The huge windows on the other side of the room showcased the bright afternoon outside and the East River glinting in the sunlight along with bits of Brooklyn in the distance. The shelves were neat and orderly, full of Steve’s books and the random objects some interior decorator had decided he needed. There was water on the bedside table and a few oranges, in case Bucky wanted them. Steve was wearing a soft blue sweater and jeans— a combination he’d spent two hours deliberating the night before. There was nothing too futuristic and nothing too distinct to be from the 40’s either. It was neutral. It was inconspicuous. It was safe.

Bucky’s face scrunched up as he turned, shifting onto his side on the soft sheets, and a tiny groan fell from his lips like a sigh.

“Steve?”

That was it. Steve felt the tears well up in his eyes faster than he knew they could.

“Yeah, h—hey, Buck. I’m here.”

Bucky’s eyes weren’t even open, the furrow of his brow just softened and his hand reached out as he began to slip back into sleep. Steve caught it without thinking and the warmth of Bucky’s skin sent a tremor through him like a shockwave. Before he knew it, his knees hit the rug and his his face was buried in the comforter over Bucky’s chest. He squeezed Bucky’s hand against his cheek and let the tears fall with hitching sobs. 

Bucky woke again slowly. Steve had almost cried himself out by the time Bucky’s hand twitched against his wet cheek. Steve lifted his head gently, trying not to disturb Bucky too much, and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Bucky’s hand tightened around his.

Right. It was go time. Steve needed to pull himself together.

He wiped his face one last time and took a steadying breath. He pulled Bucky’s hand to his chest and gently cupped Bucky’s cheek with the other, stroking gently with his thumb.

“Hey, Bucky,” he said gently.

A tiny smile twitched at Bucky’s lips. Steve felt tears well in his eyes again but he held them back.

“Hey.” Bucky’s voice was rough and low, sweeter than the grandest symphony.

Finally, Bucky blinked. His eyes fluttered as he tried to focus and barely a moment later Steve found himself staring into his best friends soft blue eyes. A smile crept across Bucky’s face like a sunrise.

“Heya, Stevie.”

A relieved, exhausted, desperate laugh burst from Steve and Bucky stared lazily up at him, taking it all in.

“You look like shit,” Bucky said through his smile, “You been cryin’?”

Steve nodded helplessly.

“Yeah, Buck,” he managed, “I thought you were dead.”

“Am I not?” 

A crease slowly appeared between Bucky’s eyebrows.

“No.” Steve couldn’t help but smile sadly, “No, you’re not dead.”

Bucky started to sit up and Steve could see the moment he went to push himself up with his left hand only to fall back when there wasn’t anything there. Steve held on tight, squeezing Bucky’s hand as he looked down at the spot where his left arm should have been. 

Steve braced himself for the scream and didn’t flinch when it came. He got up off the floor and sat on the bed by Bucky’s side, pulling them chest to chest and holding him close while Bucky shook through the panic. 

“I got you,” Steve whispered against Bucky’s neck, “I got you.”

Bucky’s hand wrapped around him and gripped Steve’s waist hard. His fingers dug into Steve’s side and Steve breathed as slowly and deliberately as he could. He waited for the gasps to calm and eventually for Bucky’s breathing to match his own. The trembling didn’t stop. Steve could feel the tears against his shoulder and the tremor of Bucky’s whole body as he quieted.

“Steve.”

“I got you.”

Bucky gasped out one more sob before pulling away and Steve reluctantly let him go, keeping his hands on Bucky’s chest as Bucky looked down at himself. He reached for the hem of the SHIELD t-shirt he’d been dressed in.

“Bucky,” Steve whispered cautiously.

Bucky said nothing. He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled. With only one hand, the shirt got tangled quickly and Steve helped Bucky push it over his head. Then there was nothing to do but look.

It was like Bucky’s shoulder just stopped. There was no protrusion, no hint that an arm had once grown from his side. It was just gone. All that remained was a scarred mess of skin. Jagged red marks spread from the old wound across his collarbone and his chest. Bucky reached up and ran his fingertips across the marred flesh. He let out a shaky breath, then fell back against the cushions and closed his wet eyes.

“What happened?” Bucky whispered, his hand reaching for Steve once again.

“We tracked Zola to a train moving through the Alps,” Steve reminded him, cradling Bucky’s hand in both his own, “We got down to it on a zip line, do you remember?”

“Yeah,” Bucky muttered, “It was fucking cold.”

“You asked me if it was payback for that time you made me ride the Cyclone.”

“It was, wasn’t it.”

“Only a little.” Steve admitted, sliding his fingers in between Bucky’s, “We landed on the roof and managed to get inside but it was a trap. They separated us into different compartments, they were ready for us.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed.

“I managed to get the doors back open and we were able to take most of the soldiers down.”

“Most.”

“There was one guy. He had a gun like a cannon and he blew a hole right through the side of the train. You were standing too close and got thrown out, but you managed to hang on to a rail.”

Bucky opened his eyes and looked up at Steve, the crease between his eyes getting deeper by the second.

“I tried to reach for you but…”

Steve pressed his forehead against Buck’s hand, still entwined with his.

“You fell.”

Barely a moment passed before Bucky spoke.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Steve laughed bitterly. Of course was the first thing Bucky would say. After everything that had happened to him, after Steve had let him down in the worst way, Bucky still wanted to believe Steve was better than he was.

“I should have been beside you. I should have jumped out after you.”

“Hey.” Bucky sat up and grabbed Steve by the chin, “Don’t you dare say that. You did everything you could, I know you did. If you hadn’t stayed on that train you wouldn’t have been able to come rescue me.”

Steve couldn’t help but let another bitter laugh escape him, this one more close to a sob than the last. He pulled his face away and closed his eyes.

“If only,” he whispered.

He could hear Bucky shifting. Taking in the room for the first time.

“Steve… Steve where are we? Are we in New York?” Steve felt a sharp tug on his hand and an edge of panic creeping back into Bucky’s voice, “Is the war over? Steve, what’s going on?”

“We’re in New York,” Steve confirmed, pulling himself together and looking up at Bucky again, “Please, relax. Let me explain.”

Against all odds, Bucky listened. His wide eyed look didn’t fade but he sat back a little, keeping his breath as calm and slow as he could while he waited for Steve to continue. 

“You fell something like 8,000 feet into nothing but rocks and ice. By the time we could contact base they told us you would have been long dead. I still wanted to go back and find you, to send you home to your Ma and Becca, but HYDRA was closing in on us. They chased us halfway back through Switzerland and by then it’d been three days. I am so sorry, Bucky, but I lost hope.”

Steve took a breath, choking back his own guilt, unable to bare looking at the man he’d left behind.

“I turned my sights on Schmidt,” Steve continued, “I found him, I fought him, and I won. But he had bombs ready for every major city in the world and I had to stop them.”

Steve swallowed.

“They were in a plane. I flew it up, away from anyone who could be hurt by them and…”

Steve could feel Bucky’s eyes boring into the side of his head.

“I crashed it into the Arctic.”

Silence.

“You said we weren’t dead.”

“We’re not.”

Steve wished his voice would hold onto is strength for more than a sentence at a time.

“Apparently—“ Steve cleared his throat, “Apparently the serum they gave us was stronger than they thought. Instead of dying we both, sort of, went into stasis. Not alive, really. But not dead either. Just, frozen.”

Steve took another breath.

“They found me a year ago and woke me up. They found you three days ago.”

Steve looked up at Bucky. His face was unreadable.

“It’s August 22nd, 2018.”

 

 

* * *

Steve didn’t know what to do. He watched Bucky wander from the ridiculous Stark coffee maker in the kitchen, to the giant flat screen TV mounted on the wall, to the huge floor to ceiling windows that lined the west side of the apartment overlooking the city. Steve doubted Bucky ever thought he’d set foot in a high-rise in Manhattan, let alone be told that he could live in one if he wanted to. Steve stood quietly as Bucky took it all in.

Steve felt his phone vibrate in his pocket as Bucky poked at Steve’s stereo. Steve made sure Bucky’s back was turned before pulling it out. He would explain cell phones later.

 

_Sam: Just checking in. Ignore me if you’re busy_

 

Steve typed out a quick response.

 

_Steve: He’s up. I think he’s trying to decide what to be mad about first_

_Sam: Fair. Give him space. Time. Take his lead_

_Steve: Ok_

_Sam: Did you cry all over him?_

_Steve: Go away_

_Sam: It’d be weird if you didn’t_

 

Steve shoved the phone back into his pocket just as Bucky turned around.

“You crashed into the Arctic?” Bucky yelled across the apartment.

Steve had figured Bucky would be mad about that first.

“I—“

“Are you telling me there wasn’t a single other way to get rid of those bombs? You couldn’t disable them or drop them into the ocean or, hell, set the plane to crash and then parachute to safety? What the fuck, Steve!”

“It was the best chance—“

“Of saving everyone except yourself!” Bucky was all up in Steve’s space now. 

He jabbed a finger against Steve’s sternum.

“You’ve always been an idiot, jumping on grenades and running stupid rescue missions with no back up, but this is just—I can’t even begin to—“

“I know, Buck, I know,” Steve placated as best he could, “But it’s done, okay? I’m fine, you’re fine. We’re both here now and you can make sure I don’t do any more stupid stuff yourself.”

“You bet I fucking will, Rogers.” Bucky shoved Steve, actually managing to knock him back a step, “You absolute dumbass.”

“Jerk.”

“Punk.”

“I missed you,” Steve blurted.

It was a bit too honest. Usually, he’d have softened it with an insult but it never came.

“I know in your memory we were never apart but for me…” Steve faltered, “for me it’s been over a year.”

Understanding flashed across Bucky’s face and he rubbed his hand against the spot he’d pushed Steve as if he could take it back.

“I thought you were dead,” Steve said again.

Bucky stepped closer and laid his head on Steve’s shoulder. Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky’s waist and sighed.

“You’re just bringing this up so I wont be mad at you,” he grumbled against Steve’s collarbone.

Steve laughed softly, then again louder. Bucky pulled back and looked up at him with concern.

“You good?” 

Steve just laughed again, cupping Bucky’s face in his hands.

“You’re here,” Steve sighed, not caring that his eyes were getting misty again or that his voice broke a little over the words, “You’re here and you’re okay and you’re mad at me.”

Bucky’s face softened into something sweet.

“I missed you so fucking much,” Steve breathed, pressing their foreheads together as if he could keep them from being separated ever again. 

“It’s okay,” Bucky whispered, “I’m here now.”

 

* * *

 

Steve wasn’t sure how long it was before they got into the elevator and finally met the others on the communal floor. The sun was setting so it must have been a few hours but no one seemed bothered by the long wait. He’d filled Bucky in as well as he could about the Avengers and the missions they’d gone on together. He wanted them all to get along and maybe even be friends. God knows he’d needed a few friends during those first weeks out of the ice.

“Sergeant,” Sam said, stepping up first to say hello, “Sam Wilson, nice to finally meet you.”

“Hi, Sam,” Bucky said with one of his killer smiles, “You can call me Bucky.”

“Can _I_ call you Bucky?” Natasha gracefully slid up behind Sam and peered around him with sly grin.

“You most certainly can, Miss…”

“Romanoff, Natasha,” she said, holding out her hand, which Bucky took, grinning that charming grin that Steve had seen sway the hearts of even the most seemingly uninterested girls.

“Oof, turn down the charm there, Bucko,” Tony shouted from the couch, “the title of ‘playboy’ has already been taken.”

“You must be Stark, the younger,” Bucky called back, stepping forward to get a good look at Tony, who lounged across the cushions while typing rapidly on his phone, “I’m sure I could give you a run for your money.”

“What, all 12.4 billion of it?”

Bucky turned and blinked at Steve for a moment.

“Is that a real number?”

“Inflation,” Steve whispered loudly with a wry grin.

Tony was still yelling indignantly from the couch when Clint dropped down seemingly from nowhere, landing squarely in front of Bucky who only flinched a little.

“Clint,” Clint said, sticking his hand out, “Hear you’re a sniper.”

“Bucky. Yeah, I am.”

“Ever try archery?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Ever shot a guy through 400 yards of foliage with heat waves so thick the ground looks like the ocean?”

“One time it was raining and we were chasing some high up Nazi fella in some ancient jeeps on a rocky slope and I shot the guy in the head through his bodyguard’s chest.”

Steve was unreasonably proud at Clint’s impressed smile.

“Nice,” he said with a toothy grin, holding his hand out again, this time for a fist bump, which took Bucky a second to figure out, but he managed.

“You ever run out of arrows and been completely useless for the rest of the fight?” Bucky asked with another charming smile.

“Oh, fuck off.”

Behind Steve, Natasha burst into laughter.

“Well, that’s a rivalry in the making,” Bruce commented from his perch a the breakfast bar, Stark Pad in one hand and a bowl of cereal in the other, despite the late hour, “Bruce Banner, nice to meet you, Sarge.”

“Doc,” Bucky greeted with a small salute, “Heard you’re the smart one around here.”

“Hey!” Tony yelled.

“You could say that,” Bruce said, ignoring Tony’s yelps, “but I’m pretty handy in a fight as well.”

“He’s doing really well,” Sam whispered as Bucky and Bruce kept talking, deliberately ignoring the increasingly frustrated shouts coming from the sofa.

“He’s always been quick to learn,” Steve whispered back, “and he can read people like nothing else.”

“And you already did most of the heavy lifting figuring out who to trust before he got here,” Sam reasoned, “I doubt he’d be this friendly if you hadn’t already given him the okay on everyone.”

Steve shrugged with a satisfied smile. Even if his experience waking up had been shit, at least it meant that Bucky’s was less so.

“Fine,” Stark was yelling, finally fed up with being ignored, “I guess you don’t want this new arm I made you.”

Bucky cut himself off mid word and turned to look at Tony incredulously. Tony gestured with his hand and the TV flicked on, showing a rotating 3D model of a sleek metal arm.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Tony continued, a self satisfied smirk on his lips at finally having everyone’s attention, “I hear that Capsicle’s old buddy’s come back from the dead and what do I do? Well, out of the goodness of my heart, I decide to throw together a little something-something as a welcome-back-to-this-crazy-thing-we-call-life present. I spend the better part of two days meticulously engineering—“

“Tony.” Bruce rolled his eyes over his cereal.

“—a brand new, top of the line, cyber enhanced prosthetic arm with special Vibranium ball bearing joints, courtesy of King T’Challa of Wakanda, and then—get this— the Cap’s ol’bud isn’t even nice to me!”

Bucky, for once, seemed stunned to silence.

“You really know how to pick ‘em, don’t you, Cap,” Tony sighed, flopping back down on the couch with an arm thrown dramatically over his face.

“Right, because you’re a paragon of virtue,” Steve deadpanned, making Clint snort.

“‘scuse you, Cap, I think you’ll find that I—“

“Thank you, Tony,” Bucky interrupted.

He sounded _moved_. Steve looked back at him and found a face of wide eyed sincerity, but Steve knew Bucky too well for that.

“Oh, uh,” Tony blinked a couple times, “Don’t mention it.”

“No, let me,” Bucky stepped forward, hand on his chest, “I was unfair before. Please understand, I put on a brave face but really I’m so confused and lost and I never imagined that while I was sleeping someone would do something so unbelievably kind for me. That someone would see another person in need and really do something to make them feel welcome and accepted. I really just—“

Steve couldn’t hold back the snort as Bucky made his voice brake. Natasha and Sam also seemed to be struggling to keep their composure.

“—I’m really so touched, Tony. Truly.”

“Uh huh, yeah, great,” Tony was already standing and backing away slowly, “It’s really nothing—“

“Oh, it’s so far from nothing, Tony. Oh, man I told myself I wouldn’t cry.”

Tony’s eyes went wide. Clint ducked behind the breakfast bar to hide his laughter.

“You wanna hug it out? Let’s hug it out.” 

Bucky started to go at Tony, arm out wide, and Tony almost tripped over the coffee table trying to get away.

“Okay, okay! You can have the arm if you _don’t_ hug me!”

“Oh, but Tony,” Bucky whined, “I really just want to show my appreciation for your incredible genius—“

“Yes, yes, genius, philanthropist, all that. You’re welcome!”

Tony batted Bucky’s hand away and ducked behind Bruce before Bucky could come at him again. Bucky just laughed loudly and retreated to Steve’s side, on his right, as always.

“Am I missing anyone?” Bucky asked, counting heads.

“Thor’s on Asgard,” Natasha said, gracefully hopping onto the counter to steal Cheerios from Bruce’s bowl, “He said he’ll try to stop by soon.”

“Asgard,” Bucky said, nodding, “the alien planet he is king of that you can get to on a rainbow bridge which he uses to come to Earth and help you guys fight other aliens with his magic hammer.”

“Exactly,” Clint winked.

Bucky stared at him suspiciously, before turning to squint at Steve.

“I swear, I didn’t make that up,” Steve said, holding his hands up defensively.

“You never had the greatest imagination,” Bucky agreed cautiously, “But I wouldn’t put it past one of these other weirdos.”

“You’ll see when he gets here,” Tony dismissed the line of questioning easily, “It’ll be so much easier for you to just see it.”

The rest of the group murmured their agreement, each having been through their own periods of doubt about Thor’s story before Bruce had gone to Asgard himself and come back with a backpack full of proof and several selfies.

Bucky nodded agreeably while Clint began hankering for dinner and a vicious debate unfolded about the various merits and drawbacks of getting take out from the Indian place on 22nd Street or the Japanese place on Madison Avenue. Steve was about to jump in with his own suggestion of the Brazilian place on 7th when he caught the slight tension around Bucky’s eyes.

“—you can’t get noodle soup as takeout, it gets all soggy and cold!”

“Yeah, if an amateur boxes it. These guys are pros, Clint, they separate the noodles and the broth so you can heat them up together when it arrives.”

“But Indian food is better for sharing and I would _kill_ for some garlic naan right now.”

“I think I’m going to pass tonight,” Steve interjected, cutting off what was sure to be a long discussion, “Been a long day and all that.”

“I’ll join you,” Bucky added, hiding his relief and sticking close to Steve as they turned back towards the elevator, “It was nice meeting you all.”

“You too, Sarge!”

“Bye, Bucky!”

“Come by my workshop tomorrow, I want to get the specs started on the arm!”

“See you around!”

Bucky smiled and waved while Steve hit the number for his floor and when the doors closed, Bucky collapsed against the glass wall with a relieved sign.

“That was rough.”

“I thought that went great,” Steve said, a little dumbfounded, “you did so well!”

“Yeah, but I thought I was going to shit myself the entire time,” Bucky told him, “that room looked like it came straight out of a Huxley novel. What the fuck was that giant chrome thing in the corner?”

“Modern art, I think,” Steve replied as they stepped out into Steve’s much more homey feeling apartment.

“I kept thinking it was going to move when I wasn’t looking,” Bucky admitted, curling in on himself a little before sliding down into the loveseat by the windows.

“Too much?” Steve asked, sitting beside him and pressing their shoulders together.

“I mean, your friends seem nice,” Bucky said, “Clint was cool and Bruce was seemed fun. I just didn’t have the energy to keep up a good face, you know?”

“Yeah.” Steve slumped farther back into the cushions, “I know exactly what you mean.”

“I don’t know how you did it,” Bucky sighed, leaning down to rest his cheek on the top of Steve’s head, “How you did all this on your own for a year.”

“It…” Steve faltered.

He wanted to say something encouraging, something to prepare Bucky for the long road ahead but the truth spilled out instead.

“It fucking sucked.”

Bucky’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and Steve fell into the hug he wished he’d gotten a year ago.

“Well, now you can show me around,” Bucky said, a little more brightly than before, “you can cook me all the future food and teach me the future dances and get me one of those glowy rectangle things you have in your pocket.”

“Sure, Buck.” Steve smiled against Bucky’s side, “though I don’t think people really go dancing anymore.”

“What the fuck do you mean people don’t go dancing anymore?”

“It’s just not really a thing.”

“That sounds like bullshit. Next thing you’re gonna tell me that there’s no music anymore either.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Now you’re just fucking with me.”

“Here, I’ll play you some Skrillex and you tell me if you can do the jitterbug to it.”

 

* * *

 

Waking up the next morning turned out to be a slightly shorter version of the previous days experience. Bucky had fallen asleep on the couch that night after Steve forced him to eat some toast and eggs and Steve had gently covered him with the duvet from his bed before curling up on the floor under an extra throw blanket. The next morning, Bucky woke up, realized his arm was still gone, panicked, calmed when Steve soothed him, then panicked again when he realized they were still in the future.

They sat down to breakfast as emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed as they had been when they’d fallen asleep. Steve was actually a little grateful when Tony texted him with a reminder to stop by the workshop later since it would give them more to do than just sit around and contemplate how fucked up things were.

“I know Tony can be a bit much but he’s a great engineer,” Steve said as he slid bacon out of the pan and onto Bucky’s plate, “and he’s become an expert on prosthetics after he stopped building weapons.”

“Penance?” Bucky asked through a mouthful of sausage.

“Definitely at first,” Steve replied, “He’ll always feel guilty, I think, but now his desire to do good comes from a more positive place too.”

Bucky hummed thoughtfully and kept eating.

“After that, SHIELD wants you to have a meeting with Dr. Yang. She’s a therapist and she helped be sort myself out after I woke up.”

“You trust her?” Bucky asked, eyeing Steve across the table.

“Yeah, I do,” Steve said, dipping his toast in a runny egg yolk, “She’s been more helpful than I can say.”

“Ok,” Bucky agreed, digging back into his breakfast.

Steve had expected a bit more resistance but Bucky seemed content to go along with Steve’s suggestions. Steve had to remind himself that Bucky wasn’t him and that even though he’d resisted therapy for months, that didn’t mean Bucky would too.

“Okay, great,” Steve said, texting Tony back, “we’ll head out in a bit then.”

‘A bit’ turned into two hours as Bucky indulged in 21st century water pressure and temperature control in Steve’s large bathroom. It was bigger than the bedroom they shared in the 30’s and the shower was comparable to a walk in closet. Then Bucky decided to have some fun with the hairdryer Steve never used and the hair mousse in the cabinet behind the mirror that Steve hadn’t even known was there. Once his hair had adequate volume, Bucky perused Steve’s wardrobe, sliding his fingers across cotton and linen, pausing on the soft cashmere sweater Steve had worn yesterday and the silk ties he sometimes had to wear to meetings with important people. 

“Do you still have that jacket?” Bucky asked, examining a dark blue bomber, “the leather one you had in France?”

“Nah,” Steve shook his head, “the Smithsonian’s got it and don’t seem to inclined to give it back.”

“The Smithsonian?”

“The government gave them most of my stuff when they thought I died,” Steve said with a shrug, “it’s part of their permanent collection at the Air and Space Museum.”

“Air and Space Museum?” Bucky echoed, “you flew a plane one time and all you did was crash and die.”

“That’s what I said,” Steve laughed.

“And now they won’t give it back?”

“Well, I asked a while ago and they said they’d look into it but…” Steve shrugged, “I hear the Captain America exhibit makes a lot of money.”

“Damn,” Bucky rolled his eyes and pulled out a soft green henley, “70 years later and government is still using you for profit.”

Steve couldn’t argue with that.

“They have some of your stuff too,” Steve said instead, “Your old uniform, your cigarette case, and some letters.”

“How the fuck did they get hold of my shit?”

“Becca donated some stuff a while back.”

Bucky fell silent. 

Steve had already told him that Becca had died in her sleep two years ago. She’d done a lot to preserve their legacy: giving interviews, collecting stories from other soldiers and relatives, and eventually becoming Peggy Carter’s secretary as she and Howard worked to found SHIELD. 

“Did she, uh—“ Bucky cleared his throat, “Did she have family? Kids?”

“Two,” Steve said, stepping closer, “She married Will O’Conner from Queens, you remember him? He died in the 90’s. The kids are in their late 60’s now, had their own kids, and they’ve got kids too.”

“Shit,” Bucky scrubbed a hand over his face, “you meet them?”

“I met her kid’s kid, your grand nephew, James, named after you, and his daughter Jess. They were really lovely. Wanted to know all about you.”

Bucky laughed, a little hysterically.

“The news that you were found hasn’t been announced yet,” Steve said quietly, squeezing Bucky’s shoulder, “We’ll tell your family when you’re ready, then make a public announcement if you want.”

Bucky nodded, staring down at the shirt in his hands for another moment before turning away.

“I’m gonna change,” he said quietly.

Steve excused himself back to the living room and waited nearly half an hour for Bucky to emerge, dressed neatly in Steve’s henley and some jeans, only looking a little ragged around the eyes.

By the time they got to Tony’s workshop it was nearly noon.

“About time,” Tony shouted when Steve knocked on the glass doorframe, “I was starting to think you didn’t want this after all!”

“Just raking up your water bill, is all,” Bucky replied, sliding easily into his usual charming self, “I told you I’d give you a run for your money.”

“Well then don’t be surprised when one morning you wake up and all you’ve got is freezing water and a hot fridge,” Tony retorted, “Come sit over here, I want to measure your shoulder.”

Past the glass entrance, the concrete walls of the workshop were a little confining and the lights were harsh and clinical. Tall metal arms of machinery hung over a circular platform with a black medical chair in its center. Steve felt Bucky falter at his side as they approached, judging by Tony’s double take, he saw it too.

“Actually,” Tony said, turning around abruptly, “the light’s better over here.”

Tony led them around a couple loose Iron Man parts and several tables worth of disconnected wiring to a pair of sofas stuffed haphazardly in the corner surrounded by empty coffee cups and old takeout bags.

“The billionaire likes Vietnamese food, huh?” Bucky mused as he shoved a couple empty styrofoam boxes off the cushions so he could sit. 

“It’s great stuff,” Tony said, turning over a crate of curved metal plates so he could sit on it, “and there are limited options at 4AM.”

After that Tony was all business, too caught up in his own new holographic prototype to really engage in conversation. He showed Bucky the arm, spinning it around as a transparent blue model in front of Bucky’s face until he looked a little sick, before making the outer paneling fall away to show him how it would attach to his body and the procedure they’d have to do to get it on. Despite the clean hologram and sleek metal, it sounded gruesome. Luckily, Tony had more tact than he sometimes let on and made it clear that this was just an option that Bucky could take or leave. 

“I’ll think about it,” was Bucky’s final decision, which Tony accepted gracefully, “but seriously, Stark. Thank you.”

Tony grinned and gave Bucky a lazy salute as he went back to whatever it was he did in his spare time.

“Ready to meet with Dr. Yang?” Steve asked as they headed back towards the elevator.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Bucky shrugged, “Don’t know what to expect really.”

Steve figured Dr. Yang would begin by telling him what PTSD was and that he experienced severe trauma throughout the war and from HYDRA and then Bucky would scoff and brush it off like most people had when they heard about ‘shell-shock’ back in the 20’s. It was likely to be a somewhat unpleasant two hours.

“I’ll walk you up,” is what Steve said instead.

“You’re not going to be in there?” Bucky asked, halting in their path to the elevator.

“No,” Steve told him, “These sessions are meant to be private. It’s somewhere you can talk about what’s happening without anyone around, including me.”

“What if I want you there?” Bucky asked flatly.

Steve considered for a moment. The last thing he wanted was to become Bucky’s crutch, which Dr. Yang had warned him about when she found out Bucky was alive.

“Why don’t you ask Dr. Yang what she thinks,” Steve suggested, knowing she would probably say no, “she is the expert, after all.”

Bucky frowned a little but nodded.

“Oh, Steve!” Tony shouted from his workstation, “When you get a chance, I’ve got these new armor designs for you to look at. I know you’ll want to make some adjustments before we move forward with it.”

“Sure thing, Tony,” Steve called back, hitting the elevator button.

“Why don’t you do that now,” Bucky said, stepping into the elevator without Steve, “If I have to go in alone, then I suppose I can get to the room on my own too.”

“Oh, are you sure, Buck? I don’t mind coming up.”

_Don’t coddle_ , Sam’s voice said in his head, _follow his lead._

“It’s fine,” Bucky said, his expression tense but determined, “where is it?”

“16th floor, room 23,” Steve said, trying to hide his own nerves, “Jarvis can help you find it.”

“Jarvis?”

“Hello, Sergeant Barnes,” said Jarvis.

Bucky jumped, whacking his elbow on the glass elevator wall.

“Fucking hell!”

“Apologies, Sergeant Barnes,” Jarvis continued, not sounding sorry at all, “Would you like me to take you up to Dr. Yang’s office?”

“That’s Jarvis,” Steve said apologetically, “he’s artificial intelligence, he’s wired throughout the building. He can help you with whatever you want.”

“I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have,” Jarvis added politely.

“What kind of questions, elevator man?” Bucky asked the nebulous space above his head.

“When Captain Rogers began using my services he often posed queries such as; “Jarvis, what is lychee?”, “Jarvis, what is that god awful sound?”, “Jarvis, does Tony ever shut up?”—“

“Hey!” Tony shouted, “You can’t use my tech to be mean to me, Rogers! It’s rude!”

“So, anything?” Bucky asked.

“Anything, Sir.”

Bucky thought for a moment, then looked at Steve.

“I guess I can think of something on the way up.”

He leaned over to hit the close door button.

“I’ll meet you back at the apartment,” Steve said, feeling a little like an overprotective parent.

Bucky nodded and gave him a small smile as the doors started to close.

“Elevator man?”

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”

“What is lychee?”

The doors shut with a soft thud and Steve was left staring at his own worried face in the polished metal.

“You okay over there, Cap?”

Steve shook himself and turned around.

“Fine,” he said, walking back up to the platform and standing by Tony’s cluttered desk, “You wanted to show me something?”

Tony pulled up a new Captain America suit design for him to look at on one of his Stark Pads. The ostensive reason for the new suit was a breakthrough Tony and Bruce had in fabrics strong enough to withstand alien firepower but Tony never missed an opportunity to give the Avengers a classier look either— a fact Steve was immensely grateful for since the original Captain America suits had more to do with propaganda than functionality or aesthetics. 

Tony fiddled with the inside of what looked like an overgrown Roomba while Steve looked over the designs, picking up a stylus and making his own alterations to the drawings.

“You happy he’s back?” Tony asked, not looking up from the gently whirring Roomba-thing.

“Of course,” Steve said, a little surprised.

“Don’t get your star-spangled onesie in a twist, I wasn’t implying that you weren’t,” Tony said, rolling his eyes.

“Of course I’m happy,” Steve grumbled, “he’s my best friend and I thought I watched him die.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a downer,” Tony remarked, “best friend, huh?”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing.”

Steve looked up from the tablet and gave Tony a questioning look.

“Nothing,” Tony emphasized, shaking his head and shoving his screwdriver deeper into the Roomba’s mechanical body, “You know if you get rid of all the red and white you won’t really look like Captain America.”

“Because looking like Captain America is such an advantage when you’re trying to infiltrate a secret HYDRA base in the dead of night,” Steve argued, coloring over more of the red with dark navy.

“At least keep the star, I’m trying to get it trademarked.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky came back from Dr. Yang’s looking absolutely exhausted. He didn’t say much and Steve didn’t ask. He just threw together a simple pasta dish that Clint had taught him and sat quietly while he and Bucky handily made their way through a full pound of it.

“They’re going to want to keep you under surveillance for a while,” Steve said as they washed their plates by hand, “just to make sure you’re okay, but later, maybe next week, do you want to come out and see the city?”

Bucky was quiet for a while.

“I mean. It’s not going to go anywhere,” he finally said, “and it’s never going to be the way it was, so I might as well get used to it.”

Steve just nodded. It only got easier, not better.

That evening Bucky watched the sun set through the huge windows of Stark Tower and flipped through a copy of _The Hobbit_ that Steve gave him. Bucky had enjoyed it when it came out in the 30’s and there was always something nice about holding a familiar book in your hands. Tomorrow, Steve decided he’d show Bucky _the Lord of the Rings_. Steve had sped through the large volume in a week and all Steve could think as he read was, “Bucky would love this.”

Bucky fell asleep on the couch again with the book open on his chest so Steve pulled the duvet back over him and set up his own bed on the floor. He lay down and dimmed the lights but found himself staring up at Bucky’s sleeping face for a long time.

_Let him explore at his own rate and make his own decisions_ , Dr. Yang had said the day before Bucky woke up, _the last thing you two need is to become co-dependent._

Steve wondered if he should go back to his room. Bucky might want space, after all. Back to his soft king sized bed that Tony thought he needed and the cool, impersonal, thousand thread count sheets.

I’ll stay until Bucky moves into a bedroom, he decided, then I’ll go back.

 

* * *

 

Before Steve knew it, a week had passed. The Avengers had taken to Bucky like fish to water, much to Steve’s relief. Bucky, Natasha, and Clint had quickly hit it off, making promises to go against each other in a shooting competition once Bucky was feeling better. Sam could read Bucky almost as well as Steve could and always seemed to know when to push Bucky toward something new. Bruce gave Bucky a case of his own personal tea he’d specially made to keep him relaxed. Even Tony seemed to enjoy trading jibes with Bucky, who could match his wit as well as anyone, despite his lack of pop culture knowledge. 

In the afternoons they’d spend a few hours with Tony while he finished up the specs for the new arm and Bucky would go back and forth over whether or not he wanted to be sedated and operated on. They both visited Dr. Yang, separately but frequently, and started watching some TV. Mostly old stuff to keep the culture shock from being too much and only a little at a time since the screen made Bucky’s eyes hurt. Steve offered Bucky a bedroom in his apartment, one that was already furnished with a huge bed and had its own ensuite bathroom, which Bucky accepted with a smile and then never used. Natasha and Sam brought Bucky simple, comfy clothes that he had yet to wear, choosing instead to wear Steve’s even though they were often a little loose. 

It was the happiest week of Steve’s life since 1941.

“That's a bold statement,” Sam remarked over brunch at the Mexican restaurant a couple blocks over.

Bucky was with Dr. Yang and Sam had hassled Steve about getting out of the Tower for their usual bi-weekly brunches until he caved. They were sitting at their usual table in the outdoor seating area that spread onto the sidewalk, watching people go by, catching up, and scarfing down tamales.

“It’s the truth,” Steve said simply, “I mean, it’s not perfect but it doesn’t have to be.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked through a mouthful of pico and rice.

“Well,” Steve thought for a moment, “I’m sleeping on the floor, I’m constantly worried something’s going to be too much for him, I keep waking up in the middle of the night to check he’s still there, and every time he’s out of my sight I wonder if that’s the last time I’m ever going to see him.”

Sam paused with a tamale halfway to his mouth and stared at Steve.

“But I wouldn’t change a minute of it.”

Sam blinked at him for a moment.

“Huh,” was all he said.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Eat your tamales, Steve.”

They ate in easy silence until Sam spoke again.

“You do look the happiest I’ve ever seen you,” he said, “if a little more tired than usual.”

Steve smiled. Sam just shook his head.

“Thanks, Sam. That means a lot coming from you.”

Sam’s response was cut off by Steve’s phone ringing loudly in his pocket. He pulled it out and was surprised to see an unfamiliar number flashing across the screen. His phone number was more confidential than most of SHIELD’s secrets and it wasn’t something people could call by accident.

“Do you recognize this number?” Steve asked, holding the phone out to Sam.

Sam’s brow furrowed and he shook his head before discreetly looking around.

“Don’t see anyone who looks like they’re packing,” he said quietly, shifting forward slightly, leaning down to where Steve knew he had a small knife strapped to his ankle.

Steve slipped a hand into his jacket and felt the hilt of the handgun under his arm, just to make sure it was there before he accepted the call and held it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Steve?”

“Bucky?” Steve’s hand fell away from his gun instantly, “Everything okay?”

“Stark got me a phone, are you still out with Wilson?”

Sam shook his head with a smile, his posture relaxing again as he nabbed the last tamale and shoved it into his mouth.

“Yeah, we’re just finishing up.”

“Dr. Yang says I can go outside now, can I come meet you?”

“Really?” Steve sat up, “That’s great! Yeah, I’ll come to the tower and we can go for a walk. Wherever you want!”

“Sounds good, ten minutes?”

“Yeah, see you in a bit!”

“Bye.”

“Bye!”

“Your boy cleared for the outdoors?” Sam asked, wiping the last of the pico from his lips.

“Yeah, I’m going to meet him by the tower in ten,” Steve said, quickly pulling some cash from his wallet, “You’re welcome to join us if you want.”

“No, no,” Sam shook his head and leaned back adamantly, “I don’t want to intrude.”

“Oh, it’s not like that,” Steve insisted, “it might be nice to have you around since I only know marginally more than Bucky when it comes to future stuff.”

“You know it’s the present now, right?” Sam said, throwing on his jacket while Steve stood and began edging toward the sidewalk.

“It’s not my fault everything looks like—“

The bullet hit Steve in the shoulder. He fell back, slamming into the pavement and using his own momentum to keep rolling and landing back on his feet before ducking behind a stone planter that separated the edge of the restaurant from the sidewalk. People were screaming. Sam yelled for everyone to get down, ducking under the table they’d been sitting at and pulling the knife from his boot.

“Cap, you hit?” He asked, peeking over the table, looking for the shooter.

Steve winced and nodded, sliding his left hand under his jacket to press against the bleeding wound. It hadn’t gone through, he’d have to dig the bullet out later. Another shot rang out and Steve felt the planter shift at the impact. Then two more. Then a burst. The planter wouldn’t hold up for much longer. 

Steve quickly tallied his resources. No shield, no armor, one standard 9mm handgun with 15 rounds, Sam, and his phone. 26 civilians in the restaurant, 6 on the sidewalk, 14 in cars. The shots were getting closer, the shooter was approaching on foot. Unknown numbers.

“Sam,” Steve hissed, pulling his gun, “get my phone, alert SHIELD.”

Sam nodded and grabbed the phone Steve had dropped right as Steve turned and aimed his gun over the planter, he saw the three shooters wearing head to toe black, and aimed for the middle one. He went down quickly, the woman next to him fired over Steve’s head and he heard Sam curse in pain. Steve shot her in the shoulder before hitting the remaining man in the stomach. 

Steve quickly dropped back below the planter and crawled over to Sam, who was clutching his hand to his chest.

“Shot me through the hand,” he groaned, “that's really not cool.”

Steve gripped Sam’s arm tightly, ignoring the throbbing in his own shoulder and was reaching for the phone when someone kneed him in the face. Steve was on his feet in seconds, striking out at his attacker’s shins, bringing her down. She snatched the phone of the pavement and threw it over Steve’s shoulder before aiming a sharp jab at Steve’s bullet wound. Steve powered through the pain. He grabbed her wrist and twisted, feeling it snap before kicking her hard in the sternum. Another hit came from behind, he turned and elbowed the man in the throat while Sam fought off another one next to him.

Steve took a moment to quickly scan the soldier as he reeled back. There were no insignias on his bullet proof vest, his tactical gear was standard, his face was covered by a dark helmet and visor, there were no indications of affiliation or rank. Steve hooked his ankle behind the man’s knee and brought him down with another jab to his windpipe before roundhouse kicking him in the head. 

On the street, the woman he’d shot was dragging herself into a van that was already moving down the street, in her hand Steve spotted his phone.

“Sam!” He yelled as Sam took the last man down, “I need your phone!”

Sam pulled his phone from his pocket and threw it. Steve snatched it out of the air and gave chase as the van turned a corner. He quickly hit the emergency button and dialed SHIELD dispatch’s 5 digit pin.

“SHIELD,” a voice responded immediately.

“Captain Steve Rogers, 987654320,” Steve said as loudly as he dared as he leapt over a mailbox and onto the street, “54th and Madison, shots fired, Falcon wounded, initiate self destruct on my cell phone, hostiles in a black van, license plate 644FBN2, in pursuit.”

“Tac Team dispatched to your location, the phone shows signs of previous external tampering, self destruct not advised. Recommending full lockdown instead.”

“Do it,” Steve yelled, dodging oncoming traffic and nearly taking out a girl crossing the street as he closed in on the van.

“Captain,” Maria Hill’s voice replaced the dispatcher’s, “Be advised, scans indicate your phone was bugged. Stark Tower is compromised. They attacked two minutes after your last phone call. ”

Steve felt his heart stop.

“Bucky.”

He dropped Sam’s phone and abandoned his chase of the van, sprinting instead towards Stark Tower. People jumped out of his way as his feet pounded on the sidewalk, his mind blank save for the constant thrum of _can’t lose him, not again, not again, Bucky, Bucky, Bucky._

He turned the last corner and was greeted by the sound of gunfire and shattering glass. Another black van was parked askew in the courtyard that led to the entrance, guarded by 4 gunmen. The elevator shaft, usually visible through the glass walls of the tower, was blown open and the metal frame of the elevator car lay sideways, half buried in the broken tile of the courtyard and three more soldiers were pulling out a struggling Bucky.

“No!” 

Steve’s shout drew their attention. He shot one in the head and managed to nick another before he had to dodge the oncoming wave of bullets, diving behind a car and peeking out the other side to shoot again.

A familiar mechanical hum was just audible under the relentless banging of gunfire and Steve felt himself relax as Iron Man landed between Bucky and the shooters, bullets ricocheting uselessly off his metal suit.

While they were distracted, Steve ran for Bucky, who had been dragged out of the elevator and was attempting to fight off two agents with one bleeding arm. Steve jumped, wrapping one hand around the first woman’s neck, landing on his feet, flipping her over, and slamming her body against the ground. He clipped the second in the chin and was about to deliver the final blow when Bucky grabbed a piece of metal shrapnel and whacked the man hard in the face, sending his helmet flying before coming around again with a back hand to finish him off.

With the agents down and Iron Man easily handling the four in the van. Steve dropped his protective stance, cupping Bucky’s face and pulling him in. He heard the metal rod Bucky was holding hit the ground as he abandoned it to fist Steve’s shirt and press their foreheads together. For a moment they breathed the same air. Steve tuned out the sound of ringing bullets and cracking bones behind him and relaxed into Bucky’s familiar warmth.

“You’re bleeding.” Bucky’s hand came up to press against Steve’s dripping shoulder.

“So are you,” Steve pulled back to examine the cuts on Bucky’s cheek and forehead.

“Scratches,” Bucky dismissed, “bullet go through?”

“No, it’s still in there.” 

Bucky hissed empathetically.

“Your arm?” Steve asked.

“Shrapnel, shallow.” Bucky frowned, “I think they were trying to take my blood.”

“What?”

“After they blew the elevator two tried to pull me out,” he explained as Tony gave a victory whoop and four SHIELD cars pulled up to the wreckage, “I saw the third swab some bloody glass.”

“Why—“

An explosion knocked them both to the ground. Steve frantically threw himself over Bucky as debris fell around them. As soon as it calmed he looked up and saw Iron Man standing shakily, his armor burnt and deformed around the torso. The SHIELD carshad been thrown back across the street, leaving the road clear. The black van peeled away leaving a small crater in its wake.

“Shit,” Tony said breathlessly, “This is what I get for not killing those bastards.”

“Steve,” Bucky groaned.

Steve pushed himself up quickly.

“Sorry, sorry.” He sat back on his knees and helped Bucky sit up, “You okay?”

“Fine,” he said, rubbing the back of his head where he hit the pavement and checking his hand for blood, “just banged up.”

“Cap, Sergeant Barnes, Stark,” Maria got out of one of the SHIELD cars and headed towards them with urgency, “I suggest we move this to SHIELD headquarters. You’re compromised, Stark.”

Steve was surprised there wasn’t a retort already halfway out of Tony’s mouth until he realized the Iron Man suit had crumpled around the chest in a way that looked dangerously painful.

“You good, Tony?”

The lack of response kicked Steve into gear. He ran over and immediately began trying to tear open the breastplate. Unfortunately, it looked like Tony had installed precautions in case someone tried to break through his suit during a fight and it wouldn’t budge.

“Jarvis!” Steve shouted, pressing his ear to Tony’s mask, trying to hear the little voice inside.

“Captain Rogers,” Steve heard faintly.

“Tony is injured, remove the suit.”

“Authorization?”

“Rogers, Steven G. 987654320”

The suit hissed and whined as it unclasped like a shell cracking open and Tony’s limp form came tumbling out into Steve’s arms. 

“Captain!”

Maria had led Bucky to one of the waiting cars. Steve quickly felt around Tony’s chest. Broken ribs, fractured clavicle. He lifted Tony gently and carried him to the waiting SHIELD car, laying him out in the back seat, and shutting the door, leaving him in the care of the agents, before getting in next to Bucky and leaving the smoldering wreckage at Stark Tower behind them.

 

* * *

 

Steve sat quietly while the bullet was pulled from his shoulder. Conventional anesthetics didn’t work on him so he endured in silence while metal spreaders held his skin open and magnetic clamps dug around for the bullet. Bucky watched from the foot of the bed, his hand on Steve’s ankle, with the serenity of someone who’d seen this a thousand times before. Steve distracted himself by watching scanners run up and down Tony’s unconscious body in the bed across from him, and by making faces at Sam, who sat uncomfortably on the next bed getting his hand patched up.

“It's a lot neater than our methods,” Bucky remarked as a SHIELD medic began stitching up the bullet hole.

“Thank god,” Steve added gruffly, remembering the bloody tweezers and dull needles of the trenches, “You okay?”

“I think I ought to be the one asking you that,” Bucky replied, coming to sit on the stool vacated by the surgeon who’d come running to dig a bullet out of Captain America’s shoulder.

“I just mean that almost getting kidnapped isn’t exactly on your therapy regimen.”

Bucky laughed joylessly.

“Honestly,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “nine days ago we were fighting Nazi’s in France. This has been the most normal hour of my life since I woke up.”

Steve grimaced but nodded understandingly. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Natasha strode down the row of mostly empty beds towards them with a file in one hand, “SHIELD wants to hold a meeting about this ASAP.”

“Of course they do,” Sam groaned, “can it wait until I don’t have a hole in my hand anymore?”

“The Asgardian tech Thor and Bruce brought us will help speed up the healing process,” Natasha said, “you and Tony should both be up and about in an hour and completely healed in a week.”

“Oh, nice,” Sam said with a grin and a nod, taking more of an interest in the faintly glowing device a medic was holding over his wounded hand.

“Why doesn’t Steve get any of that magic crap?” Bucky asked, frowning slightly.

“The tech is configured to human healing patterns,” Steve said, reciting some of what Bruce had told him when he’d been setting up the machines, “I’m technically categorized as superhuman so it doesn’t quite work the same on me.”

“That’s fucking stupid.”

“Language,” Clint chastised, dropping down from seemingly nowhere once again, “Cap must really be distracted since he hasn’t said that once since you got here.”

Steve cringed internally as Bucky’s confused eyes slid from Clint to him.

“One-Armed-Wonder over there probably gets a pass because Captain Dorito thought he was dead,” a weak voice piped up from Tony’s bed, “which is completely unfair, if you ask me.”

“You’re alive,” Clint plopped down on the edge of Tony’s bed and clasped his shoulder gently, “You know, I’ve dropped the f-word three times since Barnes turned up and Cap hasn’t said a thing.”

“Maybe we’re entering a new era of leniency,” Tony mused.

“Sorry,” Bucky said, cutting off the conversation, “I’ve just had a lot on my plate.”

He looked at Steve expectantly and Steve managed to nod in uncomfortable acceptance. Clint and Tony seemed happy to keep talking but Natasha and Sam watched the two of them with varying degrees of suspicion. Steve tried to pass it off as discomfort from the stitches.

“Who do you think those guys were?” Steve asked, hoping to turn the conversation away from himself, “Did any affiliations turn up?”

Natasha flicked open the file and made herself comfortable on Sam’s bed.

“The Tac Team found the van that attacked you and Sam abandoned a couple miles out,” she began, “Inside were a couple weapons, some blood, and a surprising amount of medical equipment, all unused.”

“What about the trace on Steve’s phone?” Sam asked.

“SHIELD is still working on that,” Natasha said, flipping a page, “the only thing they’re sure of right now is that all calls were being listened to. They don’t think they managed to get any other information though.”

“They moved in when Bucky and I agreed to meet,” Steve said, “that call must have given away our locations.”

“My money’s on HYDRA,” Clint said, “They're the one that gave Sarge the serum. Now that he’s turned up, I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted to finish what they started.”

Steve watched panic descend on Bucky’s face. He quickly reached out and squeezed Bucky’s arm.

“That makes sense,” Natasha agreed, “they must have got word that we pulled him out of the ice.”

“Do they still have the formula for the serum?” Sam asked.

“Not to our knowledge.” Natasha shook her head, “Cap and the 107th destroyed the facility in Austria and Zola died in a SHIELD prison three years later. Based on the records we have, Barnes was the only subject to survive HYDRA’s experimentation.”

“If you don’t mind, Sarge,” Bruce’s voice drew their attention to where he was standing by the door, watching them all, “I think we might benefit from putting you through a couple tests.”

“Nothing invasive,” he added quickly at Bucky’s uneasy expression, “Just some basic strength and agility exercises. We have your records from the army before HYDRA got you so we have a baseline of comparison. We can see how comparable you are to Cap, and therefore how close they got to the serum. After all, the only other people who got versions of the serum were the Red Skull and me.”

Bruce fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Schmidt turned red and I turned green. The fact that you aren’t purple means HYDRA did something right.”

“Wow, what a horrifying thought,” Tony remarked from his bed, pushing himself up onto his elbows, “So what’s the plan?”

“Well, Stark Tower is compromised,” Steve said, thinking out loud.

“Yes, yes. You’ve all made that very clear,” Tony grumbled, flopping back down onto his pillows dejectedly.

“We should all move into safe houses,” Steve continued, “it’s likely they’re after Bucky but we have no proof it’s HYDRA yet, we should stay sharp until SHIELD can confirm it was them.”

“Sounds good, Cap,” Natasha started typing away on her phone, likely informing SHIELD of their plan.

“I’ll do the tests,” Bucky said with a furrowed brow, “though the SSR already determined that I didn’t get any stronger. They said HYDRA’s serum didn’t work.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to double check,” Bruce said, “you survived in the Alps for seventy years so it must have been at least somewhat effective and after all, if you say they took a sample of your blood, we might want to know what they’re going to discover from it before they do.”

Bucky nodded uncomfortably.

“I’ll take the arm, Stark,” Bucky added, “Sounds like I’m gonna need two arms from now on.”

“Nice.” Tony gave a weak fist pump.

“Hey, man,” Sam said, giving Bucky a hard look, “now that we know someone’s after you we’ll take a lot more precautions. You don’t have to take the arm unless it’s something you actively want for the long term.”

“Sam’s right, Buck,” Steve chimed in, “You and I can share a safe house. I’ll be there the if someone finds us.”

“It’s okay,” Bucky managed a small smile, “I was leaning towards getting it anyway. I want it.”

“Well, as soon as my ribs stop creaking every time I breathe I’ll get right on it,” Tony said pitifully from his bed.

“Natasha, can you handle the SHIELD meeting?” Steve asked.

“I just did,” Natasha said primly with a flick of her hair, waving her phone at him, “Clint and I are going to be working intel on this one. Consider yourselves off the hook, gentlemen.”

“Thank god,” Sam sighed, “I swear, even SHIELD knows how to make this crap seem boring as hell.”

“Bureaucracy at its finest,” Tony agreed.

“See you all on the other side,” Natasha called as she left, Clint and Bruce trailing close behind her.

“Don’t miss us too much!” Clint added.

“In your dreams, Katniss!” Tony replied as the doors shut.

The room fell silent save for the beeping of the machines around them. There was nothing left to do now but wait until they were all discharged.

“So,” Tony began as the scanners around him shone blue light on his torso, “does anyone want to play ‘I spy’?”

“No,” Sam replied immediately.

“I spy with my little eye…” Tony mused, “something blue!”

“The scanners,” Bucky deadpanned.

“Kill me now,” Sam groaned.

“I spy with my little eye…” Tony started again, “someone… grumpy!”

“Wilson.”

“Fuck off.”

“Right again, Bucko! I spy with my little eye someone… with less impressive facial hair than me”

“Wilson again.”

“I hate you both.”

 

* * *

 

“Your names are James Buchanan and Roger Stevens,” Maria said, handing them each a folder full of fake legal documents, “Steve, you’re a freelance artist, Bucky you’re a World War II historian—“

“Can I have a different name,” Bucky complained as the van drove them to their safe house, “The only thing of note James Buchanan ever did was be the president before Lincoln.”

“Sorry,” Maria said, not sounding sorry at all, “we already printed all your stuff.”

Steve opened his envelope and found a standard New York ID, a passport, birth certificate, a smart phone, and the key to a brownstone in Brooklyn.

“Thanks for playing to our strengths,” Steve said sincerely, “It’ll be easy to fool the neighbors.”

“No problem, Cap. Hopefully, we’ll have you out of there in a couple weeks,” Maria said, “but before you go thanking me too much, this is a new safe house. It’s perfectly secure and has all the tech it needs to function but we haven’t actually gotten around to furnishing it yet.”

“Ah,” Steve grimaced.

It was too late to go to a furniture store now but he and Bucky had both slept on more uncomfortable things than a floor in their lives.

“There’s a mattress,” Maria continued, “and a few other things but we figured the ‘we just moved in’ vibe could work for you anyway.”

“Oh, thank god,” Bucky sighed, “last time we slept on a floor was in Poland, do you remember?”

Bucky elbowed Steve in the side playfully.

“You kept thinking there were spiders—“ Steve began with a grin.

“There _were_ spiders! I could feel them!”

“There weren’t any, I checked!”

“Not well enough, clearly.”

“There weren’t any! And I didn’t feel anything—“

“You callin’ me a liar, Rogers?”

“No, I’m calling you an overdramatic arachnophobe.”

“I didn’t say I was scared, I’m just saying they were _there_ —“

“Oh, look we’re here,” Maria interrupted, kicking the van door open and herding them out, “call if you need anything!”

She tossed out their backpacks and Steve’s shield before sliding the door shut again, leaving Steve and Bucky on the sidewalk in the darkness. In front of them stood an elegant New York brownstone with wrought iron rails on either side of the steps and a young apple tree in the tiny yard off to the side.

“Did you ever think we’d live on one of these fancy streets?” Bucky asked as they stared up at it.

“Not for a moment,” Steve admitted, “I always figured these places were for politicians and people like Howard.”

“Yeah, who woulda thought two poor-ass hooligans from Flushing Ave would end up here.”

“We probably bring down the market value of the neighborhood just by standing in it.”

“Oh, the _market value_ ,” Bucky teased, “it’s already rubbing off on you, Stevie. You have to resist.”

Steve laughed, grabbed his bag, and pulled Bucky up the steps.

“Well,” Steve grabbed the key from his file, “home sweet home.”

Inside was cool and empty. The tiled foyer gave way to dark wood floors and an elegant staircase. On the right was an arched entrance leading into an empty parlor with large windows and another equally large study farther through.

“You could fit our entire apartment in here twice,” Bucky remarked as they switched on the lights and took in the space.

“And then some,” Steve added, running his fingers over the fluting around the built in bookshelves, “and there’s at least two more floors.”

“Jesus.”

Upstairs they found a bathroom, a kitchen, and another study. Above that was another bathroom, this one with a shower and tub, and two bedrooms; one with a king sized mattress on the floor and the other with a double.

“At least they left us toothbrushes,” Bucky said, pulling an unopened tube of toothpaste from the bathroom cabinet, “though it’s not much of a safe house if we starve to death, huh?”

“I’ve been thinking of this more like an undercover op than an actual safe house,” Steve said, rifling through the linen closet for blankets and sheets, “We can leave if we want and we can interact with neighbors, just not using our real names.”

“They really don’t think HYDRA will find us here?” Bucky asked.

His voice didn’t change but Steve saw him fidget with the bandaid over his inner elbow where Bruce had drawn his blood only a few hours ago.

“No,” Steve said truthfully, “SHIELD is very good at its job and Maria— Agent Hill— is exceptional. We weren’t traced here, I spotted eight different security protocols while we were walking through, and no one in the public knows your face.”

“What about yours?” Bucky asked, leaning against the sink and crossing his arms.

“I’ve kept out of the press since I woke up,” Steve admitted, “They know I’m back but the only photos they have of my face are from the 40’s; I’m always wearing my helmet in the modern ones.”

“They didn’t want interviews or anything?”

“Oh, they did,” Steve shook his head and handed Bucky a towel, “probably still do, but I refused. I wasn’t in a good place back then anyway and having a bit of anonymity is nice for when I do go out.”

“Okay, so what’s the plan then?” Bucky asked, following Steve to the bedroom to help him cover the mattress with a fitted sheet.

“Well, I suppose we get into character,” he paused, “ _James_.”

Bucky froze, then did an over exaggerated full body shiver, making Steve laugh.

“Okay, _Roger_.”

Steve couldn’t help the involuntary cringe.

“Okay, I definitely don’t like that.”

“Do you think I could get away with ‘Bucky’?” Bucky asked as they tucked a sheet over the edges, “It’s still technically short for Buchanan.”

“I doubt Maria would approve,” Steve said apologetically, “this is for your safety after all.”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighed, “what are the other Avengers doing?”

“Laying low,” Steve said, unfolding a thin summer duvet, “We’re not sure that you’re the only target so they’ve all got contingencies. Tony and Bruce are too famous so they’re staying at SHIELD HQ, but Natasha does this all the time and Clint’s staying with her.”

“Why couldn’t we stay at SHIELD?”

“Because that’s the first place HYDRA will look,” Steve reasoned, “and besides, I stayed there for two weeks after I got out of the ice and I have to say, it’s not all that nice.”

Bucky laughed.

“Really? I’m surprised Stark chose that option.”

“They’re a government agency so they don’t exactly splurge on hotel quality rooms and Tony didn’t have much of a choice.” Steve chuckled to himself, “I’m sure he’s chewing someone’s ear off about it right now.”

“What about Wilson?” Bucky asked as they stuffed the pillows into their cases.

“His sister’s got a place in DC,” Steve said, “it’s far enough away and well enough protected by SHIELD that they decided it was fine for him to go there for a while.”

“Damn, I shoulda’ kipped with him.”

Steve threw his pillow at him, which Bucky managed to catch one-handed and fling back. By the time Steve had him pinned to the ground, the bed was a mess and Bucky was laughing in his ear like he had when they were kids.

“Don’t let victory get to your head, Rogers. You have an unfair advantage!”

“I had a bullet dug out of my shoulder this morning!”

“At least you have a shoulder for a bullet to get stuck in,” Bucky retorted, twisting and kicking Steve off him, “Just you wait until I get my cool robot arm, then you’ll be sorry.”

“I’m so scared,” Steve deadpanned, earning himself another kick, “come on, let's do the other bed.”

“I’m too tired,” Bucky whined, falling face first into one of the pillows, “I don’t want to.”

“Fine,” Steve rolled his eyes but his smile didn’t fade, “I’ll do it myself, you stay.”

“No,” Bucky whined even louder, “you’re gonna make me feel guilty.”

“It’s fine, Buck,” Steve said, patting the back of Bucky’s calf as he got up, “I can do it.”

“Just stay here,” Bucky said, lifting his head and rolling over so he wasn’t sprawled across the entire mattress, “We can do the other one tomorrow.”

Steve paused.

_Follow his lead_.

“Are you sure?”

“‘Course,” Bucky said flippantly, “but I call first dibs on the shower in the morning.”

“What? After everything I’ve done for you,” Steve said with mock offense.

“Oh, you really want to play that game, Rogers?” Bucky laughed, sitting up, and following Steve back to the bathroom.

They bickered as they brushed their teeth and Steve laughed when Bucky cringed at the strong spearmint taste of the toothpaste like he had every day since waking up.

“I can get you the kind they give toddlers,” Steve suggested with big innocent eyes, “it’s blue and sparkly and tastes like bubblegum.”

“Oh, is that what they gave you?”

“No, I’m not a baby.”

“They did, didn’t they.”

“They did not.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“I saw it on TV.”

“Uh, huh.”

“I did!”

By the time they were dressed for bed it was nearly midnight and the day was starting to catch up with them. Steve quietly folded his day clothes and stacked them neatly in a pile by his backpack while Bucky ducked downstairs to get some water. It was nice, just being with Bucky with no distractions and no one else around to comment on how both their Brooklyn accents came out more when they talked to each other. Senator Brandt had told him that Captain America had to appeal to all Americans, which meant toning down his accent. He only slipped up occasionally, usually when he was sleepy, but now days people seemed to think it was endearing.

Steve let his thoughts wander as he crawled into bed. He took the side closest to the door, leaving Bucky to take the far side, estimating that an attacker was more likely to come through the door than the third floor windows. He sat up on the mattress to look out, checking their surroundings one more time before he fell asleep. Across the street were more brownstones, each flanked by lush trees and topped with what looked like small rooftop gardens. He absently wondered if theirs had a garden too and lay back down. Downstairs he heard Bucky test the lock on the front door, then the back. He listened to Bucky work his way through the house, tugging on each window and closing every door so they’d hear if someone tried to come through. After a few minutes he stepped back into the bedroom, shut the door, and went to test the last windows.

“Unpickable magnetic locks,” Steve supplied as Bucky pulled unsuccessfully on the frames, “There’s a program on the phone they gave you that’ll open them with the code that’s in your file.”

“Front and back doors?”

“Same deal,” Steve assured him, “there’s also a failsafe that’ll alert SHIELD immediately if an unauthorized device tries to open them. If someone stands on the doorstep or near any of the windows for more than 30 seconds SHIELD is notified and the nearest agents are in a building two blocks away.”

Bucky turned away from the window and pulled the translucent white curtain closed.

“Also I have a gun in my bag,” Steve added, reaching out to show the backpack was within arms reach, “so there’s that.”

Bucky grinned.

“Of course _that_ makes you feel better than the state of the art security features in this place,” Steve sighed.

“At least I know how a gun works,” Bucky argued, crouching down to lift the blanket on his side of the bed, “I’m not so convinced by these phone-powered magnet windows.”

“Well,” Steve replied sleepily, curling up on his side to face Bucky, “when you put it like that…”

Steve felt his eyelids getting heavier as Bucky settled next to him.

“You good, Buck?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“Goodnight, then.”

“‘Night, Stevie.”

 

* * *

 

Steve blinked awake slowly. Sunlight was streaming through the soft white curtains and he was so warm. Bucky was curled up against him, his forehead just barely touching Steve’s shoulder through his t-shirt and his forearm pressed up against Steve’s bicep. Steve smiled and shifted just a little before falling back asleep.

 

The next time he woke, Bucky was moving against him. Steve opened his eyes and saw Bucky’s nose scrunch as the sun shone at just the right angle to get him in the eyes. Steve couldn’t help but laugh.

“Don’ laugh at me,” Bucky muttered with his sleep rough voice, turning onto his stomach and burying his nose between Steve’s shoulder and the sheets.

“I’m not,” Steve whispered back.

Bucky’s breath started to even out again and Steve closed his eyes, content to just lay there for a while in the warmth.

 

The sun had moved significantly further down the wall by the time Steve woke up for real. Bucky hadn’t moved and was still breathing softly against Steve’s arm. Steve reached out with his free hand and grabbed his new SHIELD phone off the floor next to the mattress. The time read 10:26 which was a lot later than either he or Bucky had been sleeping in the week since Bucky had come back so Steve counted that as a win. There were a few whiny messages about the SHIELD facilities from Tony in the Avengers group chat to which Sam had responded with a gif of two oddly dressed women laughing and holding a baby while saying “Yes, cry! Cry harder, baby!”. Steve didn’t know exactly what it was but it made him smile all the same. His news app said there were a few reports of gunfire and explosions in Manhattan and the mayor was urging people to stay vigilant. But according to the articles, no one had been harmed in the attacks which meant that no members of the public had been hit and that they didn’t know the Avengers were involved beyond one of the attacks occurring at Stark Tower. It was a relief to know that at least no one else had been harmed in the chaos of the day.

Steve put his phone back down and considered for the first time how he and Bucky should spend their indefinite stay in Brooklyn. They weren’t technically on the mission to figure out what had happened, though Steve was still on call in case SHIELD or the Avengers needed him. Natasha and Clint were dealing with the information gathering side of things with the help of SHIELD, Bruce and Tony were working up tests for Bucky and finalizing the prosthetic arm respectively, and Sam was working at the VA in DC. 

Steve found himself at a loss for the first time in quite a while. He hadn’t had nothing to do in so long. During the 30’s money and food had always been scarce so his time was spent looking for one or the other, working odd jobs, trying to lessen the burden on his Ma, or lying sick in bed. Then came the war, the serum, the USO, the SSR, the Commandos, the fall, the plane. Then he woke up. They hadn’t given him much to do at first. SHIELD just wanted to see what he would get up to on his own and that turned out to be a lot of nothing. Then came therapy, training, the Avengers, missions, reports, meetings, over and over and over. 

Steve’s stomach growled. He picked up his phone again and opened up the notes section to make a list.

 

-groceries

-furniture

-art supplies (for cover?)

-computer (for movies)

 

He thought for a moment. He’d been told that he and Bucky both had a lot of money now since they’d technically been getting paid for the 70 years they’d been unconscious, which didn’t make sense to Steve but he’d decided it was best not to argue about it. However, looking at his short list he imagined each of the items would be significantly more expensive than he thought they would be. Luckily, Steve had a friend who knew a thing or two about expenses.

 

_Steve: HEY TONY STOP I HAVE A QUESTION STOP STEVE_

_Tony: NO_

_Tony: I KNOW YOU ONLY TYPE LIKE THAT BECAUSE IT ANNOYS ME_

_Tony: I REFUSE TO PARTAKE_

_Steve: I DON’T UNDERSTAND STOP STEVE_

_Tony: I HACKED WILSONS PHONE I KNOW YOU TALK TO HIM LIKE A NORMAL PERSON_

_Steve: I AM JUST DOING MY BEST TONY STOP :^( STEVE_

_Tony: YOU ARE NOT! STOP SENDING ME EMOJIS WITH NOSES!!!_

 

Steve snickered.

 

_Steve: I HAVE A FINANCIAL QUERY STOP STEVE_

_Tony: well youve come to the right place my good man. step 1: be born rich_

_Steve: HOW MUCH TO FURNISH A BROWNSTONE AND WILL SHIELD PAY FOR IT STOP STEVE_

_Tony: hm, well considering i spent the night lying on a 1 ply twin mattress in a white windowless room i seriously doubt theyll pay for it and furnishing a place is not cheap, ill tell you that much_

_Steve: OH OK STOP BUCKY AND I DON’T NEED MUCH STOP THANKS ANYWAY STOP STEVE_

_Tony: oh, dont get all sad on me, let me talk to Pep real quick_

 

Steve froze. That wasn’t what he meant.

 

_Steve: IM NOT ASKING FOR MONEY STOP THIS IS JUST A SAFE HOUSE STOP WE WONT BE HERE FOR LONG STOP STEVE_

_Tony: ok let me get you up to speed_

_Tony: ive decided that we need a better plan for these safe houses since ive only been with shield for like 12 hours and ive already decided to never come back, like 0/10 and an angry review on yelp. So im thinking we turn your safe house and natashas into Avengers houses. im already working the deets with shield and my lawyers_

_Steve: WHAT DOES SHIELD GET IN EXCHANGE STOP STEVE_

_Tony: ive agreed to give them some of my iron man tech which, side note, i was gonna do anyway shhh dont tell them_

_Tony: so anyway whatever you need is on me_

_Steve: THANK YOU TONY STOP THIS WILL BE A VERY HELPFUL LOCATION FOR THE TEAM STOP STEVE_

_Tony: i hate talking to you. goodbye._

_Steve: GOODBYE STOP :^) STEVE_

_Tony: STOP IT_

 

Steve laughed.

“Wow, you’re really committed to that joke, huh?”

Steve jumped a little and looked down at Bucky, who had woken at some point and was looking up at Steve’s phone with him.

“It makes him unreasonably angry,” Steve said with a smile, “He assumed I’d be terrible at modern technology, which I was at first, but I picked it up quickly. He annoyed me a lot too, so I thought I’d play a little prank.”

“Is that where the swearing thing came from too?”

Steve stilled at that.

“No, not really,” he admitted.

“What’s that about then?” Bucky asked, shifting away a little to look at Steve properly.

Steve sighed.

“Do you remember my last birthday?”

“Yeah, we were in London.”

“Right, and you invited Peggy and Howard up to the nice room I’d been given and we played cards and you all drank a lot and ended up passed out on my bed?”

“And Peggy had to leave because she didn’t want anyone to start rumors about how she’d spent the night alone with three unmarried men,” Bucky continued with a smile, “I remember.”

“And I asked you why you didn’t invite the Commandos too?” Steve said.

“Yeah,” Bucky’s brow began to furrow, “it was because they didn’t know you before the serum. They treated you differently.”

“Despite all the stories we told them,” Steve said, “they couldn’t see past the facade at the beginning.”

They lay in silence for a moment.

“You were right,” Steve continued, “when you said no one but you, Peggy, and Howard would ever really understand me. Everyone here, everyone now, they haven’t just been subjected to the comics and the movies like the Commandos were. It’s been 70 years of hero worship. My face has been used to push all sorts of political agendas, I’ve been played by at least six different actors in ridiculously inaccurate films, and before I woke up an old scrap of paper I’d written some battle strategy on sold for over half a million dollars. I’ve practically been deified.”

“So you’re saying they all had expectations when you woke up,” Bucky figured with a scowl.

“Tony called me the ‘all American golden boy’,” Steve confirmed, “They literally bought all the propaganda Brandt had been trying to sell them.”

“Church on Sundays,” Bucky recited, “no Brooklyn accent, born the 4th of July, no swearing, a ladies man, and a man’s man.”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed, “they woke me up because they wanted Captain America, not Steve Rogers. I didn’t want to let them down.”

“By being yourself?” Bucky asked.

Steve shrugged.

“Steve.” Bucky shifted onto his elbow, looking down at Steve with concerned eyes, “I know I’ve only known all the Avengers for a few days but they all seem to really care about you.”

“At first it was just because I didn’t know if I could trust them,” Steve admitted.

“And now?”

“It would be weird of I just stopped.”

“Weird for them or for you?” Bucky pressed, “Steve, back then they didn’t know you because the story Brandt pushed was exactly what people enduring the Second World War needed to hear, now it’s because you’re not telling them the truth.”

“What’s your point, Bucky?”

“My point is that Captain America isn’t real,” Bucky said sternly, “he’s a character, and I know you’ll be so much happier being a person instead of a character.”

“Bucky—“

“The guy who stays cooped up in Stark’s tower and doesn’t swear and doesn’t do anything isn’t you.”

“Bucky, stop—“

“You’re the little shit who plays dumb pranks on his friends! You’ve only shown Tony a glimpse of the real you and I bet he secretly loves it—“

“Bucky, stop!” Steve stood, anger broiling in his chest, “You don’t get to decide who I am! I’ve been living here over a year without you and you have no idea about all the choices I’ve had to make or the things I’ve had to do. I’m not the same person I was in 1945, even if you are.”

“Judging by what I’ve heard from the others you haven’t been a person at all!” Bucky stood too, somehow just as angry as Steve, “The war is over, Steve! This is the part we always talked about where we get to go home and live our fucking lives!”

“Except you died!” Steve shouted, “I _watched_ you die and the whole idea of us going home died with you! I kept fighting, I went straight for Schmidt himself, and then I crashed that plane into the fucking Arctic because what was the point of it all if I couldn’t bring you back!”

Steve froze. Bucky was staring at him with wide, horrified eyes. Steve closed his eyes and counted.

1, 2, 3…

A floorboard creaked.

…4, 5, 6…

“Stevie?” Bucky whispered.

…7, 8, 9…

Steve opened his eyes. Bucky was standing in front of him, he looked almost on the verge of tears. 

“I need a minute,” Steve grabbed his phone off the bed before walking out.

He went to the smaller second floor bathroom, locked the door behind him, then hit speed dial. It rang four times before there was an answer.

“Hello, Steve. Is everything alright?” Dr. Yang greeted in that gentle voice of hers.

“The counting didn’t work.”

“Okay, are you somewhere safe?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like you to sit down somewhere, back straight.”

“Okay.”

“Alright, let’s begin.”

 

* * *

 

It was mid afternoon by the time Steve managed to venture downstairs. He felt wrung out and emotionally exhausted but he couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever, no matter how much he wanted to. Bucky was sitting against the wall of the living room tossing little steel nails into an empty glass jam jar he’d placed against the opposite wall. He stopped as Steve came down the stairs and sat next to him.

“You okay?” Bucky asked quietly.

Steve nodded and took the handful of tacks Bucky offered him. They began taking turns tossing them toward the jar which had significantly more tacks in it than out.

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispered as the tacks clattered against the glass, “I should have a better grasp on my temper.”

“You’ve always been a hot-head,” Bucky replied with a shrug, “but I shouldn’t expect you to be who you were before. It’s not fair. I’m sorry too.”

“None of this is fair,” Steve amended, “but we’re both here now.”

“We are,” Bucky agreed.

He nudged Steve with his elbow, Steve nudged him back, and all was forgiven for the moment. Steve knew they’d likely argue again soon. Neither of them were very good at compromising, but they’d been friends for years and it’d take more than one fight to split them apart.

“Where did you get these?” Steve asked, crawling over to the jar and tipping some of the tacks out into his hand.

“We have a basement, apparently,” Bucky said, gesturing over at the door behind the staircase, “someone left a few things down there, probably while they were clearing the place out.”

Steve nodded, pouring the tacks back in and scooping up all the ones that had missed the jar.

“Tony sent me a message,” Bucky said, the ghost of a smile twitching at his lips, “I thought I’d join in the fun.”

Bucky pulled out his phone and held it up for Steve to see.

 

_Tony: hey sarge, got those arm specs all finished up. get your ass over here tomorrow so we can do this thing_

_Bucky: DEAR TONY STOP THAT SOUNDS GOOD STOP I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVING TWO ARMS AGAIN STOP SGT J BARNES_

_Tony: FUCK OFF_

 

“Maybe you should've waited until after you got the arm to piss him off,” Steve said with a laugh.

“Well, it’s too late now,” Bucky smiled and tucked his phone back away, “SHIELD said they’d send a car to come get me, do you want to come?”

“Sure.” Steve lay down on the hardwood floor and sighed up at the ceiling, “Dr. Yang wants me to come by tomorrow anyway.”

“What should we do until then?” Bucky asked, lying down on the floor with him, his back cracking as he stretched out.

“Food, furniture, some other things,” Steve recited, “if Tony’s paying we can really go all out.”

“Does he really have 12 billion dollars?”

“Something like that,” Steve shrugged, “he supplies technology to almost every nation in the Americas and most of Europe.”

“Damn, what does he do with all that cash?”

“Charity work mostly. He funds a lot of free hospitals and schools all over the world.”

“Are we charity?” Bucky asked with a grin.

“He said the whole team would use this house,” Steve replied, “I think it’s more like an Avengers investment.”

“And he’s trusting us to make it classy?”

“I doubt he has high hopes,” Steve remarked, “but I do think he’s looking forward to making fun of our taste.”

“Do you think doing really well or really terribly would piss him off more?”

“If we do well he’ll have nothing to complain about which is sure to annoy him,” Steve mused, “though I’m not sure how to pull that off.”

“I thought you were supposed to be the man with a plan, Rogers,” Bucky scoffed, “you really can’t meet your heroes, huh?”

“Aw, I’m your hero?” Steve cooed, turning over to face Bucky with his hands on his cheeks.

“Oh, fuck off.”

Steve chuckled and followed Bucky as he picked himself up off the floor and headed for the door.

“C’mon,” Bucky urged, pulling a pair of Steve’s shoes on, “you said you’d show me new New York and I’m starving.”

They ended up in their old neighborhood which Steve had warned Bucky was nothing like how it used to be. They walked down the long street of high end stores and fancy coffee shops while young people flitted around them in shorts and tank tops that would have caused a scandal in the 30’s. Steve watched Bucky do more than one double take at the amount of skin on display and freeze in his tracks several times at the copious amounts of food in the café windows. 

“What the fuck is that?”

“A croquembouche, it’s a French thing.”

“The fuck is that?”

“Legos, they’re blocks kids play with.”

“The fuck?”

“That’s a lingerie store.”

“And that?”

“That’s a panini.”

“I want one.”

They settled on a bench in a small, well kept park where a few kids were kicking a ball around while others lounged in the late afternoon sun. They unwrapped their warm sandwiches from the café across the street and scarfed them down in minutes. Luckily Steve had the foresight to get them each two and a family sized bag of potato chips.

“2018 is weird,” Bucky remarked, watching two teens hunch together to watch something on a phone and then throw their heads back and laugh.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed through a mouthful of cheesy chipotle chicken, “Tasty though.”

Bucky hummed in agreement. So far he didn’t seem overwhelmed. Steve guessed the slow ease into things had helped a lot. Stark tower was a lot more futuristic than most of the outside world so the only overwhelming part of this outing was probably just the sheer volume of things and people.

“You doing okay?” Steve asked, just to make sure.

“I’d be better if I had one of those.” Bucky’s eyes were tracking a group of teens walking diagonally across the park. They each held a bright green cup with swirls of white frozen yogurt and fruit sticking out of the top. Steve smiled and shook his head.

“Okay, but after that we do actually need to run a couple errands.”

“Fine, fine,” Bucky scooped up his trash and began hurrying in the direction the teens had come from, “lets go!”

Bucky got a large original flavor yogurt with raspberries, kiwi, mango, pineapple, oreo, and gummy bears with a butterscotch drizzle and then nearly passed out when the total came to just over $15. Steve got a small with strawberries and reminded Bucky that $15 in 2018 was just over a dollar in the 40’s. Bucky took a single bite of mango and declared that it was worth it.

Once Bucky had downed his frozen monstrosity Steve took him to the Stark Store to pick up a laptop.

“Couldn’t we just ask him for one?” Bucky complained as they walked through the automatic glass doors, “I bet we wouldn’t even have to pay for it.”

“Yeah, but who knows what he would do to it before he gave it to us,” Steve said, “I wouldn’t put it past him to make it play Mambo No.5 every time we tried to turn it on.”

“The fuck is Mambo No.5?”

Steve played it for him on one of the display laptops while they waited for a sales person to have a free moment. By the time they walked out, Bucky had learned about Beyoncé, Queer Eye, Star Wars, and cute animal compilation videos. They picked up some Indian food on the way back to the brownstone and Steve explained Netflix to the best of his ability while they ate sprawled across the living room floor. Once they were both stuffed, Bucky closed his eyes for a bit while Steve set up their new Stark laptop. He plugged in the USB Bruce had given him months ago which automatically installed SHIELD level security as the machine booted up to make sure no one could hack it.

“This is really it, huh?” Bucky asked, staring up at the ceiling.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked, looking down at his friend.

“This is it. This is Brooklyn. This is as close to home as we’re ever going to get.”

Steve closed the laptop and pressed his toes against Bucky’s thigh just to touch him a little.

“Yeah.”

That evening they watched _The Wizard of Oz_ on their new laptop and neither commented when they both cried.

 

* * *

 

Steve woke when Bucky shifted next to him. 

“Oh, sorry,” Bucky whispered as Steve blinked sleepily in the streaming morning light, “go back to sleep.”

Steve nodded as Bucky slipped out from under the covers and disappeared down the hallway. He closed his eyes again but found Bucky’s absence too much of a disturbance to get comfortable again. He absently wondered why that was, turning over to lie across the warm spot Bucky had left. He sighed into Bucky’s pillow, his brain still fuzzy, and then Bucky was back, hair dripping down his bare torso as he searched through his backpack, which was lying in a sunspot on the floor next to Steve. The sunlight glinted off the beads of water scattered across his skin. Steve felt a wave of utter contentment wash over him and he reached out to wipe a droplet that was slowly sliding down Bucky’s temple. Bucky looked down at Steve with fond eyes and chuckled as Steve grinned lazily up a him.

“You’ve got a cowlick, Stevie,” Bucky laughed, reaching out with a damp hand to curl a lock of Steve’s hair back down.

“Stevie,” Steve echoed, voice muffled against the pillow, “I like it when you call me that.”

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, his eyes seemed to sparkle and his hand slid down the side of Steve’s face to rest against his jaw, cool against Steve’s warm skin.

“No one did while you were gone.”

Bucky’s smile wavered. Steve’s brain caught up with him and he sat up, fully awake now.

“Sorry, I—“

“It’s okay,” Bucky said, shaking his head and smiling once again, “I guess I just have to make up for lost time.”

He grabbed the shirt he’d been looking for and pulled it on while Steve returned to his own side of the bed before excusing himself to the bathroom, which was still humid from Bucky’s shower. Steve turned the spray on as hot as it would go and stripped before stepping underneath it. Thoughts churned in his head as his skin turned pink.

That had been something; something good— before Steve had ruined it by making Bucky feel guilty about something he had no control over. But what? Steve closed his eyes and tried to focus. He’d been chasing Bucky’s warmth. He’d looked up and saw him there, glistening in the morning sun, smiling at him, gently touching his hair, calling him “Stevie” like no one else did. It took Steve longer than normal to realize his heartbeat was abnormally loud and his breath had sped up considerably.

Must be the scalding water, Steve figured, lowering the temperature and finally getting around to washing himself. Whatever moment might have occurred, it was over. Steve was probably just imagining it anyway. 

He washed and dressed, finally joining Bucky in the kitchen where he was staring into the empty cabinets with a frown.

“We need to do something about this, Stevie,” he said, gesturing at the general lack of food around them.

Steve’s chest tightened at the sound of the nickname, which was odd, that didn’t usually happen. He rubbed his chest absently.

“I saw a market at the corner a few streets over,” Steve supplied, “we can probably walk there if you’re hungry.”

It was a small mom & pop shop, which Steve much preferred to the huge chain supermarkets most people seemed to use. There were just so many sections in those giant places, so much food, and such odd, headache inducing options. There was skim, low fat, full fat, low calorie, organic, non organic, zero trans fats, and butter that wasn’t butter. Here at least, there was only a handful of choices they had to make and Bucky seemed delighted by what little there was anyway.

“Stevie, look at this, do you think these chips really taste like barbecue?”

“Oh man, Stevie, look at all the apples! It’s like a big green pyramid!”

“What is that thing? Stevie, have you had a durian before?”

“Look, Stevie, they have jam that comes in a squeeze bottle! I want it!”

Every time Bucky said his name a little spark seemed to go off in the back of Steve’s mind. It was probably because they had just been talking about it, Steve figured, and it wasn’t a surprise that Bucky was dropping the nickname at every opportunity since he’d said he wanted to make up for lost time. 

“Stevie, what is miso? Is it good?”

Another spark went off. Maybe he’d hit his head during yesterday’s fight and didn’t realize it. He shook his head and smiled.

“It’s real good, Buck.”

They walked home carrying four bags each and they stuffed their previously empty fridge to its limit. Steve whipped up some pancakes while Bucky arranged, then rearranged, the cabinets to his liking. They couldn’t find forks or plates so they ate their syrupy pancakes out of the the pan with the plastic cutlery from their takeout from previous night and Steve added “utensils and dinnerware” to his list of things to get.

The SHIELD car came for them just before noon and they rode through Brooklyn and back to Manhattan while Bucky asked question after question, pointing at thing after thing. Steve did his best to explain, more than once having to admit that he had no idea what something was. 

“Stevie, what’s a dry bar?”

“Um, a bar with no alcohol?”

“It looks like someone’s getting their hair done inside.”

“Oh, uh—“

“What’s an arcade?”

“I think it’s a place for kids, like a playground?”

“What are all those machines?”

“I’m not sure.”

It unnerved him that he didn’t have the answers. Had he really spent so long locked up in Tony’s tower, never going out or really seeing the world? In truth he hadn’t been curious. He’d been so caught up in surviving that he hadn’t stopped to look around beyond the things that were in his immediate vicinity. Almost everything he knew about the world outside the Tower and his missions came from movies and books. Looking out over New York with Bucky, Steve realized that pieces of the city that had once felt such a part of him had turned into strangers that he didn’t know how to reunite with. Steve did the only thing he could think of and he asked Dr. Yang about it.

“Perhaps Bucky is unconsciously offering you a second try,” she suggested, tipping her head thoughtfully, “maybe this is an opportunity to see the modern world with fresh eyes now that you’re in a more positive headspace.”

Steve thought about it, watching the light glint off her shiny black hair that was always tied into a neat bun on top of her head from his seat across from her. He spent half his time in therapy just staring at her silky hair while he organized his thoughts. They were at SHIELD HQ now, instead of her office in Stark Tower while it was repaired. The lights here were less warm and her hair reflected it like a glossy car.

“He’s taking it so much better than I did,” he finally said.

“As is expected,” Dr. Yang reminded him, “you were first and SHIELD made some poor decisions about how to wake you that you then rectified to give Bucky a smoother transition.”

“I still feel like he’s…” Steve could hardly let the thought sit in his mind, let alone speak it, “like he’s doing better than me, which I know is a good thing but… I just wish I could be more at ease like he is. Of course I’m glad that he’s doing well and I don’t want him to— I don’t know— have a breakdown or anything, I’m just… I guess I’m just a little jealous.”

“It’s an understandable feeling,” Dr. Yang said, leaning forward in her chair, “but you have to remember, Steve, your starting places are very different, as are your experiences. You can’t expect two people experiencing the same event to have the same reactions to it. You provided him with a foundation of trust from the second he woke up, a foundation you had to forge for yourself over a period of several months. You’ve made remarkable progress in the past year and you’re doing extremely well. But it’s natural to feel jealous of someone benefiting from your misfortune. I encourage you to be open with Bucky about it.”

“Yeah.” Steve nodded, watching Dr. Yang’s hair glint as she moved, turning her words over in his head.

She hadn’t led him wrong yet, but the thought of talking to Bucky about it filled him with terror he normally associated with the moment just before a mission began. He fiddled with the pen he always brought for the specific purpose of fiddling with while Dr. Yang waited him out. She was really good at waiting.

“He thinks I should stop being Captain America.”

“Well, you already know how I feel about that,” Dr. Yang replied easily.

“Being without it seems so… exposing.”

“Steve, if you want to be part of the world and be real friends with your teammates then you have to let them know the real you,” she said, “you can’t trust someone, or love someone, that you don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

Steve wandered down to Tony’s temporary lab in the usual headache ridden haze he generally left Dr. Yang’s office with. His brain always felt stuffed to the brim with information and feelings and uncertainty after every session. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it was at the beginning, but sometimes it still left him drained for the rest of the day.

“Oh, Captain, my Captain!” Tony lamented loudly over the benches of SHIELD engineers who were all avoiding the entire center of the workshop, which Tony seemed to have commandeered, “look at the sad state of this primitive facility.”

Steve glanced around. It looked pretty similar to Tony’s usual place: filled with random bits Steve didn’t understand, big glass screens with schematics everywhere, and the constant smell of something burning. The only difference was that this workshop was occupied by a good two dozen other people who were all trying to work on their own projects around Tony’s center of chaos. Someone was welding two propellers together in the corner and someone else was sawing through what looked like a one person submarine with a laser.

“See this wrench?” He held it up above his head so Steve could see it as he approached, “it's from _2005_!”

“Do wrenches stop working after thirteen years?” Bucky asked with an unimpressed glare from his seat next to Tony.

“No, but look, it’s all sad and dinged up and it’s not even automatic.”

“A travesty,” Steve deadpanned, stopping close enough to nudge Bucky’s foot with this own, “got the arm all hammered out I see.”

On the table next to Tony was the new arm in all its glory; some thirty plates of shiny silver metal overlapping and interlocking in the shape of a defined, muscular arm. There was a certain grace and elegance to it that Steve had come to associate with Tony’s more intricate designs, especially when it came to the wrist and the delicate dexterity of each finger.

“Do you like it?” Tony asked proudly, “it should be the most articulate model yet. I’m hoping to get the specs out for free use within the month, but don’t worry, oh, Sarge, my Sarge. I’ve added some details to yours that’ll keep anyone from being able to hijack it or dismantle it without your permission.”

“It looks great, Tony,” Steve replied honestly, “how’re you feeling, Buck?”

“Look behind you and you’ll see,” Bucky replied with a grimace.

Steve turned and saw an odd looking tubular ring with several long protruding nails sticking out of it.

“Ah, that’s the—uh— less fun part,” Tony said, lifting the piece up and holding it to the shoulder of the prosthetic, “I’ve separated the attachment mechanism so the arm itself can be removed if it needs maintenance or upgrades without needing major surgery. This terminal will be surgically implanted into the Sarge’s shoulder and these nails are equipped with nano technology that’ll allow them to fuse with his bones.”

“Oh,” Steve cringed.

He’d heard the basic rundown of how the arm would be attached before but it was a whole other thing to see the actual piece of machinery in front of him.

“That’s what I said,” Bucky muttered with a furrowed brow.

“You’re still free to walk away,” Steve reminded him, squeezing his good shoulder.

“I know.”

Bucky looked up at him with a reassuring smile and eyes full of determination that Steve knew all too well.

“Let’s do it.”

 

* * *

 

“Relax, Cap,” Tony sighed, from his seat in the corner, “You heard Dr. Huang, the procedure went perfectly.”

Steve hovered anxiously over Bucky’s bed while they waited for his medication to wear off. Tony had overseen the procedure personally and Dr. Huang had been flown in from Thailand since she was the best of the best. Steve had sat there the whole time, Bucky’s hand in his, staring back and forth between Bucky’s unconscious face and the little curtain they’d put up so Steve and Bucky, if he woke up, couldn’t see what they were doing to his shoulder.

“Cap—“

“I know, I know,” Steve said, fidgeting with Bucky’s blanket, “I just want to make sure he feels okay.”

“M’fine, Stevie.”

Steve’s head whipped back around as Bucky blinked a couple times before wiggling stiffly.

“Hey, Buck. Take it easy.” Steve helped Bucky sit up and offered him a glass of water, which he shook his head at before looking down at his shoulder.

They’d forgone redressing him in a shirt since Steve figured he’d just rip it off when he woke up so when Bucky looked down he could easily see where the skin over his clavicle and down the side of his chest gave way to metal. Bucky reached up and touched the side he couldn’t see, his fingers dipping into the cavity the rest of the arm would attach to.

“Wow, don’t like that,” he mused, immediately pulling his fingers away and rolling his shoulders experimentally.

“How’s it feel, Sarge?” Tony asked, coming over with the rest of the prosthetic.

“It doesn’t hurt or anything,” Bucky said, stretching a little more, “and it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.”

“You ready to put the rest on?” Tony asked, holding up the shoulder.

“Yeah, why the fuck not,” Bucky said dismissively, turning to give Tony a better angle.

“Language, Sarge,” Tony gasped dramatically.

Bucky rolled his eyes at Steve who shrugged helplessly. Then Bucky was gripping Steve’s hand like a lifeline while Tony held the joints up to each other.

“Take a deep breath there, Bucko,” Tony said, brow furrowed in concentration, “This’ll probably feel a little weird.”

Bucky breathed and Tony slid the protrusion on the arm into the socket fused to Bucky’s skin. Bucky flinched and turned his head away as the plates on the arm shifted with a loud whir. Tony dropped it as it quivered and the arm remained attached, suspended in the air where he’d held it. The plates shuddered for a moment before falling back into place and one by one, they stilled.

“Okay, the neuro link has been established,” Tony said gently, “give it a wiggle.”

Bucky looked back at the arm and slowly, the hand began to turn. It moved like skin, to Steve’s surprise, and he watched the plates shift and twist around Bucky’s wrist as he held the hand up to his face and curled each finger toward his palm before straightening them again.

“It feels…” Bucky muttered, “real.”

Tony did a small silent fist pump while Bucky made a fist and started curling and uncurling his elbow, twisting it this way and that to test the range of motion.

“It has all the dexterity of a real arm,” Tony added excitedly, “it has the same weight too so it should never put any strain on your shoulder. I matched the specs to your other arm so they should equal each other in strength, though this one has a higher tolerance to things like heat and force, obviously, but you should be able to feel things the same way you do with your other hand.”

“Really?” Steve asked, impressed, “The metal is that sensitive?”

“It’s got thousands of pressure sensors, heat sensors, and proprioception,” Tony told him, “You should be able to tell the difference between textures, even a small breeze should be detectable.”

“Stevie.” Bucky held his hand up toward Steve.

Steve held up his own hand and Bucky reached forward until their fingertips touched. A grin blossomed across his face.

“Oh, wow,” he whispered, reaching out with his other hand and clasping Steve’s between them both, “it feels exactly the same.”

Steve squeezed the metal tightly and let his own relief finally seep through him as he watched Bucky play with his hand, slipping his new fingers between Steve’s and tightening his grip.

“Can you feel this?” Steve asked, bringing their joined hands up to his lips and blowing a cool breath across Bucky’s knuckles.

“That tickles!” Bucky exclaimed, laughing delightedly, “Do it again!”

Steve did again with a smile and Bucky snatched his hand back, laughing and scrunching his nose at the sensation, then got distracted running his normal hand up and down the metal.

“It feels like skin in my head,” he mused, “but to my other hand it feels like metal.”

“Might take a bit of getting used to,” Tony admitted, “But I’m already working on a skin-cover you can put over it if you want a more realistic look.”

“I don’t know,” Bucky shrugged, “I don’t want to pretend it's something it isn’t.”

“Fair, but it might come in handy if you ever want to go incognito,” Tony argued.

Bucky nodded agreeably.

“What about pain?” He asked suddenly, stretching the arm above his head and rolling his shoulder.

“It should never hurt.”

“What if something’s wrong though?” 

“Here, look,” Tony gently took Bucky’s wrist, “if you tap here, like where a watch would be, it’ll show you its status.”

Tony tapped once on the back of Bucky’s wrist and a small green light appeared on the spot as if it were embedded in the metal, then disappeared.

“Green means everything’s functional and stable,” Tony explained, “a single flash of red could mean something like ‘I just got hit kind of hard, don’t do that again’ or ‘I just got shot but I’m bulletproof so it’ll be fine’, constant red flashing means ‘okay, somethings kind of wrong, go find Tony when you have the chance’, and straight up solid red means ‘I’m dying where’s Tony?’. If you tap and nothing happens, that means the neuro link’s been disconnected and you’ll need to take it off and manually reset it. Capiche?”

“Yeah, okay,” he tapped his wrist a couple more times, watching the green light appear and disappear with each one, “Can I get it wet and stuff?”

“Uh, yeah, who do you think I am?” Tony replied with mock horror.

“Thanks, Tony,” Bucky said with a smile, holding his normal hand out to him, “It’s really great.”

“No problemo, Buckarooni,” Tony beamed back, shaking Bucky’s hand, “You got any problems, you come see me.”

“Will do.”

Tony left soon after, saying he was supposed to be showing some SHIELD techs how to build a photon cannon out of scrap metal and crazy straws, leaving Bucky in Steve’s care.

“I can’t believe you let him call you _Buckarooni,_ ” Steve said as Bucky pushed himself out of bed with his new arm.

“He gets a pass as long as this arm works,” Bucky said, testing his balance on two feet, “god, this feels so natural.”

“Here,” Steve handed him the red henley he’d been wearing earlier, unpinning the sleeve so that Bucky could stick his new arm through it.

Bucky pulled it on and watched the shiny arm emerge as he pushed the sleeves up to his elbows.

“How do I look?” Bucky asked, looking up at Steve.

Steve looked him over. The breadth of his shoulders was now even, the expanse of his chest was framed by his defined arms, and the metal of his left arm gleamed in the light. His jawline was sharp as ever, his hair was soft and a gentle curl fell over his forehead, and his eyes bright and clear. He looked perfect, as always. 

“You look good, Buck.”

Steve’s voice felt oddly strained. He swallowed roughly and plastered on a smile.

“Do I look like a super cool cyborg from the future?” He asked, holding his fists up in a fighting stance and hopping back and forth on his feet like he was going to jab out at Steve.

“‘Cool’ isn’t the word I would use,” Steve said with a grin, crouching a little and holding up a hand for Bucky to punch, “maybe something more along the lines of the Tin Man from Wizard of O—“

Bucky’s punch sent him stumbling back against the frame of the bed, his hand actually in pain. Bucky’s face morphed from teasing to horror.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Bucky grabbed Steve by the shirt to steady him, “Is your hand okay? I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”

“Jesus, Buck,” Steve rubbed the angry red mark across his palm, “that thing really packs a punch.”

“Stark said he calibrated it to my other arm, it shouldn’t be that much stronger.” Bucky inspected his own palms as if he could see inside them if he looked hard enough.

“Maybe we should call Tony back,” Steve suggested, trying to shake the sting out of his hand, “we shouldn’t take risks if the arms been programmed wrong.”

Ten minutes later they sat in front of Tony and Bruce back in the SHIELD workshop. They were bickering about something neither Bucky nor Steve could keep up with while spinning the 3d model of Bucky’s arm around and around on one of Tony’s hologram tables.

“Do you know what they’re saying?” Bucky whispered to Steve while Bruce shoved a Stark Pad in Tony’s face.

“Not even a little bit,” Steve whispered back, offering Bucky a handful of M&M’s he’d liberated from Tony’s secret stash in the bottom of his tool kit.

They watched the men argue until they finally seemed to come to a conclusion and they turned around to present Steve and Bucky with their findings.

“Okay, here’s what we think is happening,” Tony began, clapping his hands together even though he already had their attention, “so when my old man was helping Dr. E give Capscicle here the serum, he built a state of the art vita-radiation chamber to bombard Cap’s cells with tons of energy to expedite the effects of the serum.”

“You on the other hand, Sarge,” Bruce jumped in, “you only got the serum, no radiation.”

“So the serum didn’t manifest almost spontaneously, like it did with Cap.”

“It would have happened slowly, over a matter of years, perhaps,” Bruce continued, “Or it might have killed you, we’ll never know for sure, but instead the serum was given the perfect environment to mature safely.”

“When you went into stasis in the Alps, the serum was able to permeate your cells slowly, over the past 70 years, keeping you alive and also allowing the actual effects of the serum to manifest fully.”

“In short,” Bruce said, “the 70 year freeze was like an incubation period for the serum. The blood sample you gave us confirms that you’ve moved out of the realm of ‘human’ and into ‘superhuman’. Now that you’re out of the ice, the serum is manifesting itself, giving you some, if not all, of the benefits that Steve has.”

“Super strength, speed, stamina,” Tony listed off on his fingers, “accelerated cognition and healing, superior hearing, sight, and taste, I missing anything, Cap?”

“Sounds about right,” Steve replied with a shrug.

“There might be side effects,” Tony continued, “who knows what other junk HYDRA pumped you with.”

“We'll have to run some more tests to get more specific,” Bruce added, adjusting his glasses, “maybe tomorrow, or the next day. You should rest a bit considering the procedure you just had.”

“Okay,” Bucky replied, sounding a little dazed.

He never responded well when HYDRA came up. He’d never really spoken to Steve about what had happened to him during those months of captivity and Steve suspected the whole incident was a mountain Dr. Yang was slowly chipping away at. The idea that HYDRA had unfinished business with Bucky and the realization that they’d been more successful in their experiments than anyone had realized hardly sat well with Steve, let alone what Bucky must be feeling.

“Why don’t we head home for the day,” Steve suggested, shooting Tony a look when he opened his mouth again, “get some dinner, have the evening in, come back in a day or two?”

Bucky nodded and followed Steve as he lead the way out, thanking Bruce and Tony quietly as they left.

“You want to stop by Dr. Yang’s office before we head back?”

Buck nodded once. They didn’t make it back to the brownstone until long after the sun had set.

 

* * *

 

_“You look good, Stevie,” Bucky said with a small smile, watching Steve from the doorway of the little room the SRR had given him._

_Bucky’s skin was still sallow and the dark circles under his eyes seemed to darken by the day. Steve could guess why Bucky refused to see the medics and doctors on site but he still wished there was something he could do to help his friend._

_“You think so?” Steve asked, pulling his jacket off the hanger, “I’m not sure if I pinned these on right.”_

_“Well, let me see,” Bucky came over, skin still damp from his bath under his threadbare shirt, and helped Steve pull his olive green uniform jacket on, “this ones in the wrong spot.”_

_Bucky unpinned the purple and yellow badge and moved it to the other side of Steve’s chest._

_“There we go,” he said before stepping back and looking at him consideringly, “Hm, let me just—“_

_Bucky reached up and brushed Steve’s hair back with his fingers. It would never not be strange that Bucky was reaching up instead of down to touch him._

_“There,” Bucky said, sweeping his eyes across Steve’s body with a smile, “Stevie, you’re glowing.”_

_Steve threw his head back and laughed. The strangest thing about that statement was that Steve believed him. As unnerving it had been at first to walk around in what felt like someone else’s body, his new health made it all worth it. His astigmatism, asthma, partial deafness, scoliosis, all of it had vanished and Steve never felt so good. He could breathe, he could see, he could hear, and nothing hurt for the first time ever._

_“Well, I can’t let my new good looks go to waste, now can I?”_

_“You always looked good,” Bucky replied with a strangely sad smile, “but I’m sure every girl in Europe would fall over themselves for the chance to dance with you now.”_

_“I’d be happy with just one,” Steve said, feeling to make sure his tie was on right._

_“Agent Carter?” Bucky guessed, something unhappy flashing across his face._

_“You don’t like her?” Steve asked._

_He wasn’t sure why the idea of Bucky not liking her upset him but it did._

_“No, no, she’s great.” Bucky scrubbed a hand through his damp hair, “she’s smart, beautiful, a great agent, and she liked you before you got the serum.”_

_“You think so?” Steve couldn’t keep the relief out of his voice._

_“‘Course,” Bucky said, sitting down and crossing his legs on Steve’s little bed, “like I said, she’s smart.”_

_“I wasn’t sure because I know she and Howard have known each other for a while.”_

_“Howard?” Bucky scoffed as Steve sat down next to him, “Nah, she doesn’t like him and he knows it. She’s only got eyes for you, anyway.”_

_“How can you tell?”_

_“It’s easy,” Bucky said, shaking his head, “You’re just shit at noticing when people like you.”_

_“I am not,” Steve argued with a grin, knocking Bucky’s shoulder with his own._

_“You are,” Bucky insisted, shoving back, “you wouldn’t be able to tell if it hit you with a car.”_

_“I would too,” Steve said with a laugh, more for the sake of arguing than due to any real conviction, “besides, you’ve hit me with a car before and I could definitely tell.”_

_“Yeah, Steve, I fucking did.”_

_That wasn’t the reaction Steve was expecting when he brought up the story of Bucky’s little mishap while learning how to drive. It usually got a big laugh but instead Bucky was looking at him with a sort of frustration in his eyes that Steve couldn’t account for._

_“You okay, Buck?” He asked, putting a hand on Bucky’s forearm._

_Bucky had been a bit temperamental since he got back from HYDRA, which was frankly better that Steve expected him to be when he’d seen him strapped to that table. Steve did his best to give Bucky what he needed: time, space, closeness, attention, levity, sincerity, anything. He tried to exude friendly concern, not wanting to be overbearing or coddling, he knew how much he’d hated that when he was sick. Luckily, it seemed to work. All the tension drained from Bucky’s shoulders and he dropped his head into his hands with a sigh._

_“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, “I’m just a little worked up. Stark was trying to see if the HYDRA serum was any good. Apparently I’m just as ordinary as I was before, but with more anxiety.”_

_“Hey, well, now we can be sure you’re not going to turn into a red monster like Schmidt,” Steve replied, placing his arm gently around Bucky’s shoulders, “At least we know you’re still you.”_

_“You should head out,” Bucky said abruptly, standing up and looking around uncomfortably, “they’ll be waiting for you down at the pub, you gotta celebrate the medal and the new team and all that.”_

_“You’re part of the team, Bucky,” Steve insisted, “and I’m not about to celebrate without you.”_

_“Aw, hell, Stevie, I don’t think I can go down there right now,” Bucky grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck, “I’d bring the mood down.”_

_“Well, then,” Steve said, starting to tug his jacket off again, “We’ll celebrate up here, just the two of us.”_

_“No, Steve!” Bucky grabbed Steve’s hands before he could slide the jacket down his shoulders, “You gotta get down there, they’re all waiting for you. Agent Carter’s going to be there and everything. Besides, can’t let those good looks got to waste, right?”_

_“I can see them another night, Buck,” Steve said sincerely, “I’d honestly rather spend the evening with you, anyway.”_

_That seemed to give Bucky pause, his iron tight grip on Steve’s hands loosened a little._

_“You would?”_

_“Of course,” Steve gave Bucky a reassuring smile, “end of the line, remember?”_

_A laugh burst from Bucky’s lips, it sounded a little hysterical and Steve felt Bucky’s hands tremble over his. He stood and wrapped Bucky in a tight hug while he tried to figure out whether Bucky was laughing or crying._

 

* * *

 

Steve woke with a start. He was too hot. He kicked the duvet off and stared up at the dark ceiling. Next to him, Bucky was turned away, his back a few inches from Steve’s side. Steve could feel the sweat cooling all the way down his spine as he sat up, stretching out his tense muscles. The details of his dream were already slipping away. He knew it took place in the 40’s, Bucky had been there, and Steve had been drowning in the feeling that he’d missed something. It worried at the back of Steve’s mind as he silently slipped out of the bed he and Bucky shared and padded softly down the stairs. Judging by the swaths of moonlight illuminating the kitchen, it was around 3AM. Steve got himself a glass of water and sat down on the floor in the empty study. He watched the silver light slide across the room and then saw golden sunbeams creep down the walls as the sun rose while he tried, desperately, to figure out what he’d missed.

 

* * *

 

“The fuck is an ektorp?”

“A couch, probably?” Steve replied uncertainty.

They were standing in a room full of sofas while a child in a shopping cart screamed delightedly at a giant stuffed shark and couples all around them held up different sized throw pillows and rhythmically sat down and stood up to test the firmness of various cushions.

“Why exactly is everything in Swiss?” Bucky asked for the third time.

“Ikea’s from Sweden,” Steve corrected.

“Do they not make furniture in America any more?”

“I don't know, the internet said this place was good.”

They watched two children race each other down the path marked with arrows that led through the labyrinth of a warehouse that made up the top floor of the furniture store.

“Do we need matching footstools?”

“I mean, do you want them?” Steve replied, picking up a yellow pillow that looked like a big piece of corn, “Tony’s paying, remember?”

“True, true,” Bucky mused, surveying the scene once again with a more critical eye, “Then which one do you think is the most expensive?”

They made their way through the store like that, starting with the highest price and working backwards, laughing at the ridiculous features and wondering if anyone would really spend two thousand dollars on a wardrobe.

When they got to the bed section, Steve reminded himself that he should probably let Bucky have the master bedroom. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t taken the time to set up the other bed yet, he just kept putting it off. 

“Stevie, what do you think of this one?” Bucky flopped down on a king sized display bed and pointed at the minimalistic wooden frame, “I kind of wish it had more going on, like those fancy ones we found half blown up in Switzerland, do you remember?”

“I remember,” Steve said with a small smile, “Dernier found that big fur coat in the dresser and pretended to be an aging heiress for half an hour.”

“He coulda’ fooled me,” Bucky laughed, hopping back up and pulling Steve by the arm towards another bed, “What about this one?”

He pushed Steve down onto his back before falling down next to him. They already had mattresses so they didn’t really need to lie on anything but Bucky seemed to like bouncing around more than actually looking for a frame.

“This is nice,” Steve said with a shrug, checking the price tag, “cheap too, we can get this for my room.”

“Your room?”

“Hi there! Can I help you guys with anything?” 

Steve and Bucky both sat up quickly and found themselves in the sights of a small dark skinned woman in a bright yellow Ikea shirt.

“Oh, we were just—“

“I have a question,” Bucky interrupted, standing up and gesturing uncertainty at the beds around them, “Which one’s gonna make me feel the most like an aging French heiress every time I get in it?”

“Oh, um,” the woman thought for a moment, “our designs tend to be a bit more clean and simple. How would you feel about inhabiting the role of a modern tech genius?”

“Like Tony Stark?” Bucky asked gleefully.

Steve immediately pulled out his phone and sent Tony a text asking what kind of bed he had.

“Exactly!” The woman exclaimed, “Sleek, classy, no fuss.”

Bucky snorted, but covered it with a laugh.

“You guys looking to upgrade your current setup?” she asked, leading Steve and Bucky through the rows of beds.

“For sure,” Bucky said emphatically, “Roger and I are technically sleeping on the floor at the moment.”

“On a king sized mattress,” Steve assured the woman with a smile and a roll of his eyes, “James is always so dramatic.”

“Oh, please,” Bucky swatted Steve’s shoulder, “you’re the one who nearly refused to leave the house this morning because you couldn’t find the pants you wanted.”

“These ones have bigger pockets,” Steve explained with an overly dramatic sigh, “and they stretch the way I like.”

“Here, try this one,” the woman said through a laugh, “it’s perfect for couples!”

Steve froze mid step. It was a logical assumption, the part of his brain that was still working supplied. He had told her they slept in the same bed after all.

“G-Great,” he choked out, “We’ll think about it, thank you.”

“Let me know if I can help you with anything else!” She called, retreating to her station at the front of the bed section.

Steve and Bucky stood there for a moment not making eye contact, then Bucky sighed, sitting heavily on the bed she’d led them to and falling back to stare at the ceiling.

“Springy,” he remarked.

Steve’s phone buzzed in his pocket with a response from Tony.

 

_Tony: even with my budget you cant afford it_

 

“Tony?” Bucky asked.

“He says we can’t afford it.”

“Figures, it’s probably got jets or something. Come on, let’s go look at kitchens.”

 

* * *

 

_Steve’s elbow hit the curb hard as he fell. He felt the cobblestones hit him right where his spine curved and his head went a little fuzzy until he blinked the sensation away and found himself looking up at wide blue eyes._

_“Stevie? Oh my god, Stevie!”_

_“Whatcha do that for, Buck?” Steve groaned as big hands helped him up._

_“I’m so sorry! I forgot which one was the break, I got distracted. Jesus Christ,” Bucky rambled, “Are you hurt? I wasn’t going all that fast. God, Stevie, are you okay?”_

_“Fine, fine,” he waved Bucky off, rubbing the back of his head and twisting a little to get his back to stop tingling, “Jeez, Buck, I thought you said you were getting the hang of it.”_

_“I was!” Bucky groaned, smacking his own forehead,“You distracted me, alright? Oh, man, the side of your face is all bruised!”_

_“That was there before,” Steve dismissed, allowing Bucky to lead him to the passengers side of the borrowed car, left idling haphazardly half way around a corner, “Wait, I distracted you? You tryna’ say that was my fault?”_

_“You get into another fight? You couldn’t keep your mouth shut for two days while I was gone, huh?” Bucky pushed Steve into the car and shut the door, jogging around to the other side._

_“I don’t know if I want to be in here if you’re drivin’,” Steve muttered as Bucky got in._

_“I can do it fine as long as you’re in here and not out there bein’ all distractin’,” Bucky chastised, backing the car up a little to get them around the curb._

_“Distracting how?” Steve said incredulously, “I was just walkin’! Besides, you said you forgot where the break was!”_

_“Because you were bein’ distracting!” Bucky argued, pulling the car around the corner and heading down the mostly empty road at a glacial pace._

_“You look like one of those gents in the Arrow Collar ads,” he added more quietly._

_Steve snorted. He’d picked up the new suit to go to Ms. O’Malley’s daughter’s baptism. He didn’t know the O’Malley’s all that well but Ms. O’Malley and his mother had been close, so he’d been extended an invitation. He’d taken one look at the thick cardstock letter and realized that if his Ma were still alive she’d have a fit if he didn’t go looking as impeccable as he could afford. He’d gotten a suit that fit better than most of his other clothes but he was sure he was still drowning in it. No way his skinny, knobby kneed, asthmatic self looked anything like the illustrated Adonis that graced the cover of_ the Saturday Evening Post _every other week._

_“I don’t think anyone looks like the gents in the Arrow ads,” Steve sighed._

_They were all gorgeous and tall with strong chins and soft eyes, lovingly painted by J.C. Leyendecker, the greatest illustrator alive. Steve had been lucky enough to see one of his original works at a show he’d been invited to through his work at the magazine. He’d stared at those confident, deliberate, unyielding brush strokes for nearly an hour._

_“You know,” Bucky began, uncharacteristically slow as the car crept closer and closer to the auto body shop two blocks away, “I heard the artist based the Arrow man on his fella.”_

_Steve had heard it too and, staring at the painting in the show, he didn’t have much evidence to the contrary. The painting had been for an ad in 1910, showing off Arrow collars and Cluett shirts. A woman played with a dog while two men with golf clubs were placed on either side, one sitting next to her and the other standing with a hand on his waist. The woman, distracted by the collie, didn’t seem to notice the intense look being shared by the men around her. It was a look that wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone but them. Steve almost had to look away just to give them privacy, but he hadn’t. He couldn’t._

 

 

_“Must be a good lookin’ fella,” Steve murmured in reply._

_They fell silent as Bucky inched the car closer and closer to the shop, seeming too nervous to go any faster, despite the number of cars that began overtaking them when they realized Bucky had no intention of speeding up._

_“You look real good in that suit, Stevie,” Bucky finally said, strangely deliberately, “real good.”_

_“Thanks,” Steve replied, fidgeting with his sleeve and staring out the window, “Not really Arrow material though.”_

_Silence descended once again, this time lasting until Bucky drove up to the little lot in front of the auto body shop. Luca Moretti waved a dirty towel at them as Bucky parked behind the car Luca was working on._

_“Hey, Bucky!” He called, coming around to punch Bucky's shoulder as he got out of the car, “Saw you comin’ up at around 3 miles an hour, what’s that all about?”_

_“He hit me like an idiot,” Steve said very matter-of-factly as he hopped out._

_“Jesus, Barnes!” Luca exclaimed, running to check the front of his car for dents, “Whatcha’ do that for? I thought you liked the lil’ guy?”_

_Bucky’s face quickly turned bright red and Steve immediately took offense to being called the “little guy”._

_“You’re only two inches taller than me Moretti, don’t go gettin’ all high and mighty.”_

_“I gotta take what few victories I can, Rogers,” Luca sighed, throwing a friendly arm around Steve’s shoulders, “How do you put up with this one though, huh, Steve?”_

_He gestured over at Bucky who was scowling deeply at the two of them._

_“I loan him my nice car for two days to go visit his dear old aunt and he comes home, hits his best pal, and then gets all pouty about it.”_

_“He’s a handful, no doubt,” Steve agreed, grinning when Bucky’s petulant frown turned on him._

_“I am not,” Bucky retorted before tossing Luca his keys._

_“You’re never gettin’ these back, Barnes,” Luca said, waving the keys at him before tucking them into his pocket._

_“Yeah, yeah, move your arm, you’re gettin’ junk on his suit.”_

_Bucky swatted Luca’s arm off Steve’s shoulder and brushed the fabric before laying his own arm across it._

_“Wish you had thought about that before you knocked me down on a dirty street with a car,” Steve gibed._

_“I apologized!”_

_“Give him hell, Rogers!” Luca called as he headed back to work._

_“Buy me a hot dog and maybe I’ll forgive you.”_

_“You drive a hard bargain, Stevie.”_

_“I’m no pushover.”_

_“I think Luca’s car would disagree—Ow!”_

 

* * *

 

Steve watched the sunlight pool at the baseboard of the wall. His phone said it was 5:20 AM even though a minute ago Steve would have sworn it wasn’t a minute past 2. Ever since the serum he could get by on minimal sleep but he wasn’t sure how long he could keep doing this. It was the second night dreams mixed with memories had kept him up through sunrise, which was more than enough to unnerve him since he hardly ever had such mundane dreams. He was used to waking up shaking from nightmares of the war, Bucky’s death, and his own. Good memories were rare, ones about random days from a lifetime ago was just plain odd. He hadn’t spent much time thinking about the past unless Dr. Yang made him and the memories she asked him to recall were usually the bad ones— ones he needed to process, according to her. Now he found himself musing for hours about the time Bucky wanted to talk about J.C. Leyendecker after hitting him with Luca Moretti’s car.

He pulled the laptop towards him and flipped it open. He typed “J.C. Leyendecker paintings” into the search bar and scrolled through image after image of gorgeous men in neat shirts staring longingly at each other. He found the one he’d been thinking of near the top. The colors on the screen weren’t quite as vibrant as they were in real life but the gaze between the men was just as striking. The image linked to an article titled “Hiding Homosexuality on the Cover of America’s Magazines”, which Steve slowly scrolled through. He read about Leyendecker’s personal life, which he shared with a man named Charles, his rise in popularity, his decline at the success of Norman Rockwell in the 40’s, his death in the 50’s, and his resurgence in 2017 at the return of Captain America. Steve froze, staring at the image of his own face next to the gorgeous Arrow man.

Apparently, after his death, Steve was likened more than once to the iconic paintings and when Steve refused to appear in photographs or interviews after his return, people began pulling up the old images again to get a sense of what he looked like. He could see the resemblance a little now. They had the same strong chin and high nose, broad and blond, and always accompanied by an equally beautiful dark haired man. Steve let his eyes trace down the face of an exquisitely painted young brunet descending a staircase behind his lovely female companion. The man wasn’t looking at her though, his eyes were drawn somewhere out of frame, perhaps toward someone else. The realistic part of Steve’s brain told him he could never create something so luxuriously elegant, but the other part, the part that still yearned, screamed for a brush.

Steve quickly looked up whether there were any art supply stores nearby and found one only four blocks away, but it didn’t open until 8. He paced the room like a caged animal while he waited for the minutes to tick by.

“Stevie?”

Steve froze mid step and turned around. Bucky was crouching on the stairs, peering through the wooden railing at Steve. His hair was sticking up wildly and Steve could see the sleepiness that still clung to his face and the pillow wrinkles pressed into his cheek.

“Hey, Buck.”

“You okay? It’s real early.”

“Oh, I’m fine. Just thinking.”

“You were up early yesterday too,” Bucky remarked, coming down the stairs and stumbling sleepily against Steve’s chest.

Steve caught him in a hug automatically and Bucky pressed his tired face against Steve’s neck, his new arm was warm from the bed and the metal slid smoothly over Steve’s t-shirt.

“Sorry, I’ve been having weird dreams.”

“Weird how?”

“Just stuff from the past. Memories,” Steve explained, leaning his cheek against the top of Bucky’s head.

Bucky hummed thoughtfully and hugged him a little tighter.

“Come back to bed,” Bucky whispered.

Steve checked the time. It was only 6:08. Still two hours until the art store opened.

“Okay.”

Steve let Bucky lead him back upstairs and into the bed that still lay sadly on the floor.

“Do you remember when you said I looked like the gent in the Arrow shirt ads?” Steve asked as he curled up facing Bucky, who squinted at him like he was still too tired process what Steve was saying.

“Sorry,” Steve laughed, pulling the covers up higher around them, “go back to sleep.”

Bucky sighed with a little smile and his eyes slid shut. Steve watched him breathe as the morning light blossomed into a halo around his sleeping form. 

If Bucky were in a Leyendecker ad, Steve thought, he’d have sold a hundred thousand shirts. 

Steve imagined a brush carving out the light that framed Bucky’s cheekbone, the tiny flick it would take to get the curve of his eyelashes, and the smooth mix of paint and linseed oil he’d use to get the soft curl of his hair. He’d drawn Bucky dozens of times when he’d been working for the magazine in the 30’s. Sometimes he needed a model for an illustration and he’d ask Bucky to hold a cup a certain way so Steve could draw his hand or sit with his knee bent so Steve could see how the fabric of his trousers folded and stretched. Sometimes he’d draw Bucky while he was reading a pulp or smoking in the fire escape. Sometimes while he was dancing with Dottie at O’Flannigan’s Bar or trying to convince Ruth from the post office to see a picture with him so he could kiss her when it was over. Sometimes Steve drew Bucky when he wasn’t there. Small, loose drawings he had to make in order to get the thought of Bucky out of his head. He always threw them away after. They were never any good. Not compared to the real thing.

He let his eyes rake across Buck’s face. He’d stared at Bucky a great deal in Austria after Steve had finally made it to the war a year and a half after Bucky. He’d stared at him even more since they’d both come back from the dead. The sharp curve of his jaw, his strong brow, the gentle curve of his lips. Steve knew Bucky’s face better than he knew his own.

At 7:40, Steve quietly rose. He washed, changed, and slipped out the door while Bucky slept and walked the four blocks to the art store where he picked up a selection of oil paints, gesso, a board to work on, thick multipurpose paper, a sketchbook, a staple gun, a handful of brushes, palette knives, tape, pencils, rags, a few jars, and some gamsol. He stood next to the register with two baskets of supplies, mentally going through the list of everything he might need before darting back into the isles to pick up linseed oil, razors, and a square glass palette. 

He was back in the brownstone by 8:10, where Bucky was waiting for him, sitting on the stairs across from the front door with a pout. He took one look at the bags in Steve’s hands and scoffed.

“Figures.”

“Sorry, did I wake you up again?”

“It’s fine,” Bucky said with a wave of his hand, “where you gonna set all that up?”

Steve hadn’t thought about that. He’d need a bit of space and the fumes from the paint and gamsol wouldn’t be good for anyone, though his enhanced lungs could probably handle it. That ruled out the living room and study on the first floor which other people were likely to use when the rest of the Avengers arrived, the study next to the kitchen was off limits too since Steve thought it’d make a good dining room. That left the two bedrooms upstairs.

“I’ll put it in my room,” Steve decided, stepping around Bucky to head up the stairs, “I should probably set up the bed too while I’m at it.”

Steve kicked open the door to the other bedroom and stepped inside. He hadn’t set foot in the place since the first night when he and Bucky had walked through the whole building. It was dark and oddly cold, the double mattress was strewn a little haphazardly in the middle of the floor. Steve turned to make a comment to Bucky only to realize he hadn’t followed. Steve poked his head down the stairwell and spotted Bucky’s elbow down on the first floor where he was still sitting on the stairs, not having moved an inch.

“You okay, Buck?” He called down the stairs.

“Fine,” Bucky replied, he sounded resigned.

Steve wondered when Bucky’s next appointment with Dr. Yang was, maybe some memory had come back and he needed someone to talk to.

“You sure?” He asked, not wanting to overstep.

“Yeah,” Bucky poked his head around the bannister to look up the little space in between the landings at Steve with a smile, “I’m fine, Steve.”

Steve, not Stevie.

It wasn’t a big deal but Steve suddenly felt like he’d done something wrong.

“Okay,” he called back, taking Bucky’s word for it and retreating to his bedroom with a strange ache in his chest.

Steve pushed the mattress into a corner and began laying out his supplies. He’d have to get a desk, he decided, and a dresser and a bed frame. They’d ended up walking out of Ikea with no furniture, only kitchenware and a potted split leaf philodendron that Steve was sure would be dead within the month. After the overwhelming selection in the furniture store, Steve and Bucky had decided to look primarily online for their interior decorating needs. Bucky had already picked out a big elaborate headboard for his king sized bed and found some cabinets and a table for the dining room. Steve wondered if he should splurge and get a proper easel. With Tony’s budget it was definitely doable, he just wondered if it would be fair to get something only he would use if this was meant to be a communal space for the Avengers. 

He leaned his board against the wall and laid out all his supplies next to it before grabbing the linens for the bed from the closet in the hall so he wouldn’t forget. He could hear Bucky moving around downstairs, making breakfast maybe. Steve left his door ajar so he could listen while he pulled a couple pencils out of the pack and flipped open his new sketchbook. 

He’d taken a few pictures in the past two weeks, mostly of Bucky, but there were a couple of others, mostly silly things he’d sent to Sam, like one of the durian from the market and another of two pigeons fighting over the remnants of a hot dog bun which he’d sent with the caption “your siblings are fighting” to which Sam had replied with the middle finger emoji. Steve smiled to himself and kept scrolling back. There was another one of Bucky, three days after he’d woken up, standing by the windows in Steve’s apartment in Stark tower. The afternoon sun illuminated his him from the front and the TV on in the background provided a nice cool bounce light on the far side of his face. 

Steve propped his phone up against the board and started to sketch. He was rusty so it took more than a few tries to get it right but eventually the pencil settled in his hand and the rough texture of the paper rubbed a familiar pattern against the side of his palm. After he’d sketched to his satisfaction, he pulled out a clean sheet of the nice paper he’d picked up and stapled it to the board, pulling it tight and smooth. He prepped the page with gesso and a soft brown tone before picking out a flat, round tipped brush and beginning to roughly sketch Bucky’s face in with broad strokes.

It was rhythmic and familiar, blocking in the planes of Bucky’s face in rich golden brown. He carefully marked out the shadow under his brow and the frame of dark lashes around his eyes until he was satisfied. While the underpainting dried, he made a line of paint dollops along the edge of his palette. Two reds, two yellows, two greens, two blues, two browns, and white. He mixed hues together with his palette knife, creating little piles of the colors he’d need and lining them up along the adjacent side of the palette before finally getting to the fun part.

Steve began carefully laying down the creamy tan of Bucky’s skin, the light that shone down the bridge of his nose, and the rich brown of his hair. He gently dragged his brush across the page to mark the gentle slope of his eyes and the soft curve of his mouth. Stubble was always difficult but Steve had a lot of practice from drawing Bucky over the years. He took a page from Leyendecker’s book and decided to forgo a background, leaving the page loose and unfinished as he finally added the last highlight around the shell of Bucky’s ear.

 

 

Steve dropped his brush into a little jar of clean gamsol and finally straightened up. His back was sore from hunching over and, looking around, Steve realized the light from the windows had long since faded. Steve flicked on the lights and stepped out into the silent landing poking his head into the empty bedroom before a woman’s voice downstairs drew his attention.

“—is not what happened.”

“It so is! You just blocked it out because you embarrassed yourself,” another woman replied.

Bucky’s bright laugh cut through the chatter and Steve crept downstairs, peeking around the corner to see into the living room where Bucky and two unfamiliar young women were sitting on large furniture boxes, which hadn’t been there that morning, with cups of coffee from the café three blocks over. Steve did a quick scan of the women’s clothing to check for concealed weapons and found none.

“You guys should hear some of the shit Roger and I used to get up to,” Bucky said with a shake of his head, “we got into so much trouble.”

“Don’t listen to a word he says,” Steve interrupted, drawing everyone’s attention, “or he’ll have you believe everything that’s ever happened to him was all my fault.”

“It _is_ all your fault!” Bucky yelled indignantly as Steve entered the room properly and smiled at the two women. One was a curvy brunette with striking red lipstick and the other was a more slender, reserved looking woman with dark eye makeup. Bucky had always dated around so seeing him with a few girls was never a surprise but he also didn’t have much of a type so it was hard to tell which one he was looking to date.

He decided against shaking their hands since his were still covered in wet oil paint, knocking Bucky’s shoulder with his own instead so that he’d introduce them as he sat down at Bucky’s side.

“Roger, this is Darcy Lewis and Wanda Maximoff.”

“We live a couple doors down,” Darcy explained with a smirk, “we saw James trying to drag these boxes up the steps by himself and thought he could use a hand. Where were you with all your big muscles?”

“Oh, sorry,” Steve turned to Bucky in surprise, “I didn’t realize the furniture would be coming today, why didn’t you come get me?”

“You were really in the zone,” Bucky said with a shrug, “I didn’t want to bother you.”

Steve wondered if Bucky’d seen the painting he was working on, he wasn’t sure why but the thought of Bucky seeing it made his heart lurch.

“What were you working on up there?” Darcy asked, peering curiously at Steve’s paint smeared hands. 

Steve quickly decided she must be the one Bucky was interested in. She seemed enthusiastic and interested compared to Wanda’s slightly bored gaze and, besides, Wanda seemed a few years too young for them even without the seventy year age gap.

“Oh, I’m a freelance artist,” Steve said, trying to remember his cover while he wiped his hands on a rag he’d shoved in his pocket earlier, “I was just doing some painting for fun.”

“Paint anything I might have seen?” She asked, propping her elbow on her knee and leaning towards him with bright eyes.

“Probably not,” Steve replied, trying to come up with a reasonable lie, “my stuff tends to end up in, uh, private collections.”

“You must be good,” Wanda remarked quietly in a soft, slightly accented voice.

“I’m not—“

“He is,” Bucky interrupted, “he’s real good.”

“Modest,” Darcy chided with a smirk, poking Steve’s bicep accusingly.

“What about you two,” Steve asked quickly, wanting desperately to change the subject, “what do you do?”

“I assist Dr. Jane Foster research the various types of alien tech that keep falling to Earth,” Darcy said casually.

“Wow,” Steve sat up a little, “you must be really smart. Dr. Foster is the world’s leading expert on Asgardian tech, isn’t she?”

“Yup,” Darcy said, popping the ‘p’ loudly, “got Thor to take her there and everything.”

That could be a problem for their cover, Steve thought.

“What about you, Wanda?” He asked, deciding to steer clear of that line of questioning for now.

“My brother and I attend a university nearby,” she said, not elaborating or seeming to want anymore questions directed at her.

“That’s neat.”

“I should be going, actually,” Wanda said, standing up gracefully, “my brother is expecting me back for dinner.”

“And that’s my cue as well,” Darcy sighed, giving Steve a wistful look, “Pietro may be the most annoying human being on the planet but that boy sure can cook.”

Steve smiled politely and got the door for them as Bucky said his goodbyes.

“Good luck unpacking!” Darcy called as she and Wanda stepped onto the street, “If you need a hand you have my number!”

“Will do!” Bucky said, waving one last time before shutting the door.

“They seem nice,” Steve said as they returned to the living room where some half dozen large boxes lay waiting for them, “Sorry I didn’t help with these.”

“It’s fine, really, Steve.”

Steve again. Not Stevie.

“Are you hungry? I can cook us something before we tackle those boxes,” Steve said, wanting to make up for it.

“Sure, what are you thinking?”

“Uh, Clint showed me how to make risotto,” Steve suggested.

Bucky’s eyebrows shot up.

“That’s fancy shit, Steve.”

“It’s not that difficult,” Steve said, already heading upstairs to the kitchen, “It’ll be good.”

“Alright, I believe you,” Bucky replied with a small smile, following Steve up.

Steve began pulling out ingredients and a pan, handing Bucky an onion to chop, while he heated up some chicken stock.

“So,” he began as he swirled the liquid around in the pot, “Darcy seems nice.”

“Yeah, she can lift like a hundred pounds too,” Bucky added with a smile, “I’m sure we’ll be seeing her around.”

“Yeah, it was nice of her to help you out.”

“I could invite her over some time,” Bucky suggested, “ask her to help us move shit around or something.”

“Sure, if you want—“

“There’s a movie theater a few streets over, you could take take her to see a picture.”

“I—What?”

“Or I could just give you her number now,” Bucky continued, “she definitely wouldn’t mind.”

“Wait, Bucky,” Steve turned to Bucky, not trying to hide his confusion, “I thought you invited her in because you liked her?”

“Actually, I thought you would like her,” Bucky said with a shrug, “and you must have noticed how she was flirting with you.”

“I—she was not!”

“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky rolled his eyes with a laugh, “I know everyone says the serum gave you enhanced cognitive abilities but sometimes I wonder. Maybe she’s got a friend I could go with. A double date, it’d be fun!”

“She wasn’t flirting,” Steve said resolutely, turning back to the pot simmering on the stove and giving it a stir, “and I am not interested in her.”

“Why not?”

Steve’s hand paused against the spoon. Why wasn’t he interested? Didn’t other 26 year olds want to date and flirt? He’d never really done either of those things, even when Bucky dragged him out on double dates back in the 30’s. The women hadn’t been interested in him and he’d never put in all that much effort to begin with.

“I’m just not,” was all he could say.

Bucky shrugged.

“Well, there’s a million ladies in this city. I’m sure there’s still one out there who could spark your fancy.”

Discomfort churned in Steve’s stomach. He stared into the gently bubbling broth and felt discomfort turn to frustration. Maybe it was the unexpected guests in the house, maybe it was the sleep deprivation, maybe it was the paint fumes. Whatever the case, the room suddenly felt stifling.

“I need some air.”

Steve abandoned dinner and was standing outside on the sidewalk before he could think about it any further. The cool evening air was an instant balm for Steve’s overheating skin. He didn’t want to go too far in case something happened and Steve remembered wondering if their brownstone had a garden on the roof. He’d seen the door that led up there on the third floor but, not wanting to go back inside, Steve just glanced around for any prying eyes before quickly scaling the front wall of the building, hopping neatly onto the top of the brownstone in a matter of seconds.

The space was wide and empty, framed by a low brick wall, without a plant in sight. Across the street, Steve could see that people had laid out planters and tables for little picnics in the sun. Steve walked out into the middle of the empty space and lay down flat on his back, spreading his arms out and staring up at the dark sky. A handful of stars twinkled above him. He managed to spot the three that made up Orion’s Belt, the only constellation he could really pick out on his own. Bucky had shown it to him one night when he was sick and hadn’t been at school. That was a lifetime ago now.

Steve stared up at the stars and felt the chaos of his thoughts drain out of him, giving way to the exhaustion of having only slept about seven hours the past two nights. In the quiet stillness of the evening, Steve’s eyes eventually slid shut.

 

* * *

 

_Steve scratched angrily at the scab on his cheek. It was framed by a dark purple bruise but he ignored the pain, scratching until he was at risk of reopening the cut. He watched Bucky across the school yard with a scowl. Bucky’d finally broken up with Emma Ricci and was now trying to make Daisy O’Brien laugh while the remaining handful of girls he hadn’t already dated looked on ecstatically from the benches._

_Steve was watching from his usual spot next to Ms. Farley. His free time had been cut down considerably since it became clear that all he was going to do with it was pick fights, no matter how many times he tried to explain that he always had a good reason. His classmates were jerks and it wouldn’t be right for him not to tell them so. The one regret Steve had about it was that he couldn’t be plastered to Bucky’s side all day and was now forced to watch him flirt and break hearts left and right._

_“Ms. Farley?” A younger boy Steve didn’t recognize said as he approached them from the school building, “Ms. Walsh is lookin’ for you. She says it’s important.”_

_“I’ll be right there, David,” Ms. Farley replied, standing up and looking at Steve, “Steven, I’m going to let you go but only if you promise not to make any trouble.”_

_I never make the trouble, Steve wanted to say._

_“Yes, Ms. Farley,” he said instead._

_“Go on, then,” she dismissed him, heading into the school after David. Steve got up and made a beeline for Bucky._

_He wondered if Bucky’d be mad at him for interrupting as he approached. Bucky usually only hung out with girls if Steve was busy but Steve thought that might just be because Bucky didn’t want him to feel bad about having no dates of his own. Steve brushed the thought aside and kept going until he was close enough to see Daisy O’Brien plant a kiss on Bucky’s lips before running off to join the other girls on the benches who were beside themselves with the drama of it all._

_Jealousy surged through Steve like a wildfire and he found himself wishing Tim McCarthy would say something stupid just so Steve would have something to hit._

_“Heya, Stevie,”Bucky called through his wide grin, “I gotta date with Daisy this weekend. I’m gonna take her to the fair down by the docks.”_

_He tossed his arm over Steve’s shoulders and dragged him across the yard toward the crabapple tree by the fence._

_“If you want, I can ask her to bring her friend, Giorgia. She’s sitting over there, see? Cute, right? You could come with us, like a double date. It’ll be fun!”_

_“That’s alright, Buck,” Steve replied, trying to keep his tone even, “I don’t want to get in your way.”_

_“You’re never in my way, Stevie,” Bucky said brightly, “come on, it’ll be a good time!”_

_Bucky’s eyes were so earnest and his smile was so genuine that Steve almost said yes._

_“It’s really okay,” Steve said, “besides, there’s a church thing this weekend, my Ma really wants me to go.”_

_“Aw, fine,” Bucky said with a pout, “I’ll tell you about it later then.”_

_Steve bit back a sigh. Bucky always told him about it later even when Steve was there to see it with his own eyes. He heard about Bucky’s first kiss, his second, and his third. He heard about how Martha Romano stuck her hand up his shirt and how Judy Sullivan had straddled him in her bedroom while her parents were out._

_Steve spent hours telling himself he hated hearing about it because he was jealous of Bucky but in the back of his mind he knew that wasn’t true. He was jealous of the girls who got to do those things with him._

_“You wanna go past 32nd street after school?” Bucky asked, kicking a couple of fallen crabapples around, “Al told me they have a market going today and they’re sellin’ fried dough only ten cents a piece.”_

_At least Steve didn’t have to worry about Bucky abandoning him after a week like he did with the girls. He’d been a constant for Steve since they were barely toddlers and Steve hoped they would still be friends even when they were fifty. So Steve took his feelings and shoved them deep in the back of his mind, never to see the light of day._

_“Only if you’re buyin’ you mook.”_

_Bucky tackled Steve into the grass, laughing when Steve smushed a crabapple against his chest._

_“Gross!” Bucky grabbed a fistful of grass and smeared it across Steve’s jacket._

_Steve managed to push Bucky back, cackling as Bucky hit the dirt. He grabbed another crabapple and was just about to rub it across Bucky’s face when a voice cut through their roughhousing._

_“Steven Rogers, what did I just say?” Ms. Farley demanded from across the yard, “You get yourself over here this instant.”_

_“It wasn’t his fault, Ms. Farley,” Bucky said immediately, shaking the dirt off himself, “we were just tusslin’.”_

_“Then perhaps you’d like to join him inside for the rest of the afternoon, James.” Ms. Farley said shaking her head, “You boys are too old for that kind of behavior anyway. Get in, both of you.”_

_Steve and Bucky followed her inside, heads ducked to hide their matching grins and Steve knew that even though Bucky would never look at him the way he wanted him too, his friendship would always be enough._

 

* * *

 

 

Where’s Bucky? Steve thought as he blinked up at the sky. Oh, right. Roof. 

He felt oddly calm. The tumultuous churning in his mind had finally settled and he felt perfectly at ease. His dream came back to him in pieces. The crabapples, Daisy O’Brien, Bucky… Steve jerked up, finding himself on his feet in an instant. 

He loved Bucky. He _loved_ Bucky. He always had. 

He’d known it when Bucky wiped the blood from Steve’s cheek after he’d picked his first fight. He’d known it from the first time Bucky had ever called him “Stevie” like it was the most natural thing in the world. He’d known it after Bucky had laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered, “I’m with you until the end of the line” like a vow.

But Bucky hadn’t loved him back, that was clear by the string of girls that had their hands in his every other week and the kisses Steve had to watch be given away day after day to people that weren’t him. Steve would wait up some nights when Bucky had dates only to wake up the next morning to a still empty apartment. So he’d wrapped his feelings away and buried them deep inside where no one, not even he could find them. He got so used to tamping it down that it became second nature because of course Bucky didn’t love him, why would he? What was the use even pretending. He was skinny, weak, sick, short, always bruised, and never satisfied. He was everything Bucky wasn’t. 

Then he’d met Peggy, he got the serum, and, eventually, he got to fight. Peggy had liked him even when he was nothing and liked him even more after the serum made him healthy enough to really flourish. He liked her too and once Bucky was back at his side he felt that everything was as it should be. 

But then Bucky died. He slipped through Steve’s fingers and was left to freeze. Grief and rage drove Steve on, hunting HYDRA like he had nothing left to lose because he didn’t. 

His own death had come quickly after that.

Steve stumbled toward the door off the roof and punched in his pin code to open it. He walked in a daze down the stairs and into the bathroom, turning on the tap and splashing the freezing water across his face. Gripping the sides of the sink to keep himself from collapsing, Steve stared up at his own reflection. Wild eyes stared back at him. He hadn’t really looked at himself for a long time and what he saw sent a small shock through him. He looked exhausted. His skin was pale and sallow, the golden sheen of his hair seemed to have dimmed, and creases had worried themselves into his forehead. He looked a decade over 26 and the slump of his shoulders spoke to a century of pressure weighing him down. Whatever glow he used to have was gone, maybe it froze to death in the Arctic or fell into oblivion in the Alps. Steve didn’t know, but he thought about the giddy joy he felt every time he saw Bucky again and wondered if perhaps it didn’t die. Maybe it was just frozen and waiting to thaw. 

God, what should he say to Bucky? Should he say anything? How could he tell Bucky he’d been in love with him since they were kids and then he’d buried his feelings so deep in denial that he forgot they were even there? And what would Bucky say? Thanks but no thanks? Would he leave? All he knew for sure was that Bucky didn’t like him like that—

 

_“You’re never in my way, Stevie,”_

_“You look real good in that suit, Stevie. Real good.”_

_“You wouldn’t be able to tell if it hit you with a car.”_

_“Come back to bed.”_

 

“Oh,” Steve whispered at his reflection, “I’m a fucking idiot. I’m a giant goddamn moron.”

He wiped his face on his sleeve and jumped down the stairs four at a time.

“Bucky?” He called, halting in the kitchen only to find it empty.

The stove was off but the pots were right where Steve had left them. An onion lay half chopped on the cutting board, it looked like it’d been lying out for at least an hour.

“Bucky?” Steve called again a little more anxiously, darting down to the first floor.

The brownstone was empty and Bucky’s shoes were gone. Steve immediately patted his empty pockets for his phone before running back upstairs to his painting station where it was still lying next to the portrait of Bucky which now glared up at him like a flashing neon sign of his own suppressed feelings. The screen lit up as he grabbed it and Steve found himself staring at 14 missed calls and a dozen texts.

 

_Bucky: You okay?_

_Bucky: Steve?_

_Bucky: Why aren’t you answering your phone?_

_Bucky: Are you mad at me?_

_Bucky: I’m sorry about the Darcy thing, I’ll drop it I promise_

_Bucky: Steve, where did you go?_

_Bucky: If you don’t respond in the next five minutes I’m coming after you_

_Bucky: Okay, fine, if that’s how it is_

_Bucky: I swear if you’re just ignoring me I’m going to be really pissed_

_Bucky: You’d better be dying or something I swear to god Steve_

_Bucky: I didn’t mean that_

_Bucky: Stevie?_

 

Steve’s heart kicked into overdrive. The last message had been sent 45 minutes ago. He dialed Bucky’s number as he grabbed the gun from his bag and his shield from his bedside before making for the front door.

It rang and rang and rang.

_“I’m sorry, the number you have dialed—“_

Steve kicked open the door and ran into the street, dialing again. Which way would Bucky have gone?

_“I’m sorry, the number you ha—“_

Steve dialed again. In the 30’s Steve had always gone to the small park a few train stops away when he was upset. Now the nearest park was in their old neighborhood, the one he and Bucky had sat in barely a week ago. Steve ran for it.

_“I’m sorry, the num—“_

Steve dialed again. And again. And again. He could see the park in the distance when he heard the sound of a phone ringing.

_“I’m sorry, the—“_

Steve hung up. The ringing stopped. He dialed again. The ringing picked back up. Steve followed it down a side street until he was staring at Bucky’s cracked phone lying face down at the edge of an empty parking lot in a small pool of blood.

 

* * *

 

“Cap, don’t be reckless, SHIELD is working on this.”

“Banner’s right,” Natasha said, almost running to keep up with Steve’s intense pace toward the helipad, “just wait a little longer and they’ll have the Tac Team ready to go.”

“That armor hasn’t been tested yet!” Tony shouted over her shoulder, trying to grab at the fabric of the blue stealth suit Steve was still pulling on, “It’s not ready!”

“I’m taking this.” Steve grabbed a double thigh holster with two semi automatics already locked and loaded off the rack of weapons by the door.

“That’s not very Captain America of you,” Clint remarked.

“Captain America doesn’t fucking exist.” Steve snapped finally turning around to face the rest of the Avengers, “He’s a comic book character invented by politicians to get people to buy war bonds. My name is Steve Rogers and I should have ended HYDRA a long fucking time ago.”

Steve turned on his heel and marched out, leaving nothing but shocked faces in his wake. Steve broke the lock on the quinjet easily, bypassing security clearance to get inside without authorization. He only paused when the others started following him on board.

“I don’t know about you but I kinda like this new guy,” Tony whispered loudly at Bruce as he pulled his back up Iron Man suit out of one of the quinjet’s many compartments, “he says ‘fuck’ a lot.”

“So what else was a lie?” Natasha asked, looking vaguely impressed as Steve closed the quinjet doors behind them.

“I’m not religious, I think America is a deeply flawed country, I have a Brooklyn accent, my birthday is not the fourth of July,” Steve listed off, “does someone else want to fly this thing? I’ve only flown a plane once and I died.”

“I got it,” Clint nudged past Steve to hop into the pilots seat, “do you like apple pie?”

“I’d rather have cake.”

“Did you hate the America themed birthday party I threw for you last month?” Tony asked as the jet lifted off the runway.

“Yes.”

“Did you still like the sweater I got you?” Natasha asked with a teasing grin.

“Yes.”

“When’s your actual birthday?” Bruce asked.

“November.”

“Oh my god, are you a scorpio?” Tony exclaimed, “that makes so much sense.”

“Jesus Christ, Stark,” Clint groaned from the cockpit, “I thought you were a scientist.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tony sighed loudly, “I forgot this was a ‘no fun allowed’ zone.”

“Clint, watch your flying,” Steve interrupted, “SHIELD intelligence identified the nearest HYDRA base as being 2 degrees further west.”

“I know, I know,” Clint batted away Steve’s hand, “god, don’t tell me the real you is a backseat flyer.”

“Only for the Sarge, I’m gonna guess,” Tony mused, “What happened anyway? Why’d you let him go out alone?”

Steve tamped down on the guilt and clenched his jaw.

“I stepped out. He came looking for me.”

“Did you guys fight?” Bruce asked sympathetically.

“No,” Steve said a bit too quickly, “I just needed some air.”

“It kinda sounds like you guys were fighting,” Clint mumbled over his shoulder.

“We weren’t,” Steve insisted.

“Lover’s quarrel,” Natasha hissed to Clint, who nodded in agreement.

“Fucking hell,” Steve groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose, “can you just fly the goddamn plane.”

“Sorry, Cap, we’re just teasing,” Natasha said, grinning as she sat against the wall of the jet, “you guys are a couple though, right? It figures that you wouldn’t say anything about it since you wanted us to think you were a straight comic book hero. If you’d said something sooner I’d have stopped doing background checks on all of SHIELD’s female employees for you.”

“We’re not— you did what?”

“I thought you seemed lonely,” Natasha said with a shrug.

“I’m sorry, did you just say you and Sergeant Robocop aren’t a couple?” Tony interjected, “because that sounds like bullshit.”

“We’re not.” Steve repeated, his jaw clenching again.

“Come on, Cap—“

“Let them figure it out,” Bruce whispered, smacking Tony’s shoulder.

Tony threw up his hands. Steve stared resolutely out the front window. He was telling the truth anyway and he didn’t want to say anything about his feelings before he talked to Bucky, if Bucky was even still alive.

“ETA 6 minutes,” Clint announced, shifting them all into professional mode.

Steve strapped the guns around his legs while the rest of the team suited up, pulling out more guns, knives, and arrows from various hidden compartments in the jet.

“We’re gonna talk more about how Captain Lies-A-Lot faked his personality for over a year though, right? Like am I the only one that’s a little bit pissed?” Tony asked, having not quite made into the professional zone with the rest of them.

“I’m not a hypocrite,” Natasha said curtly.

“I’m too used to Natasha to be mad,” Clint added.

“Steve can do what he wants,” Bruce said with a shrug.

“God, I can’t believe I’m saying this but where’s Wilson?” Tony sighed, “he’d back me up.”

“4 minutes,” Clint announced.

“Plan, Cap?” Tony asked, pulling his helmet visor down.

“According to SHIELD, it’s a standard HYDRA facility,” Steve informed them, figuring out a strategy as he spoke “Stark hold the perimeter with Banner. Widow, Hawkeye, and I will go in. Hawkeye, sweep the building to locate Bucky. If he’s there we’ll grab him and destroy the place. If not, we infiltrate, Widow will hack the systems to locate Bucky and the facility they have him in, then we destroy the place and move on to the next one. Got it?”

A chorus of “yes, Cap” rose up and Clint brought the jet down quietly in the darkness half a mile away. The five of them fanned out between the trees of upstate New York and quickly circled the perimeter of the compound, validating SHIELD’s assessments about the place being a standard facility. Natasha and Clint regrouped with Steve at what appeared to be the easiest point of entry: a maintenance entrance with two guards.

Clint took them both out with silent arrows, pulling them out of the guard’s necks as Steve busted the lock. They slipped inside the large warehouse and Clint quickly peeled off to get a higher vantage point. Steve and Natasha pressed forward, moving in between rows of HYDRA weapons, quietly taking out every soldier they came across in easy tandem.

_“Cap,”_ Clint whispered over the coms, _“eight people in a room a hundred yards ahead of you. I see medical equipment and a lot of guns.”_

Steve sped up, running silently between the crates and tanks toward a light at the far end of the warehouse. As they got closer, Steve could hear the whirring of machinery and soft voices.

He motioned for Natasha to go left while he headed for the slightly open door, peeking inside to get a lay of the land.

Bucky was strapped to a medical chair. His hands were cuffed to the armrests and a mask was fitted over the bottom of his face. His legs were tied down and one was drenched in blood. His right sleeve had been torn off and a needle was drawing blood from his arm. He looked murderous. His eyes darted from person to person as the HYDRA soldiers and scientists moved around him like he could kill them with a single glare. There were seven total: three scientists and four soldiers, each with at least two guns, four of which were already pointed at Bucky.

“Now,” Steve whispered into his com.

To his left, something exploded. Steve ducked behind the door as two of the guards came rushing out and as soon as they were clear he left them to Clint while he and Natasha burst inside. Steve crushed the ribs of the first soldier with his shield while Natasha shot the scientist who ran for the alarm. The second Bucky saw them he ripped his arms up, tearing through the metal cuffs like they were nothing and pulling the needle from his arm. Steve shot the other soldier before tossing the gun to Bucky who caught it and quickly took out another scientist. 

Between the three of them, HYDRA didn’t stand a chance. 

When the room was clear, Steve made a beeline for Bucky, ripping up the restraints around his legs while Bucky tore the mask off his face.

“Took you long enough,” Bucky sighed as Steve hauled him to his feet and hugged him tight.

“Sorry, Bucky,” he whispered against Bucky’s neck, “I didn’t have my phone with me.”

“Where the fuck did you go?”

“The roof.”

“Goddamnit, Stevie.”

Stevie.

“Sorry, Buck,” Steve whispered again.

“S’okay,” Bucky said, hugging him back, “knew you’d turn up eventually.”

Steve’s heart stuttered. He pulled back and pressed his forehead against Bucky’s.

“‘Till the end of the line,” he whispered.

Bucky sighed against him.

“You might want to wrap this up, boys,” Natasha interrupted from her lookout spot by the door, “we’ve got more incoming.”

_“Cap, there are a few dozen arriving in trucks, Hulk and I are on it,”_ Tony said through the coms.

“Copy,” Steve said, releasing Bucky, “can you walk?”

“Yeah.” He tested his weight on his bleeding leg, “it hurts but I can manage.”

“Gunshot?”

“Two.”

“Here,” Steve handed Bucky his shield, taking in his jeans and the dark red henley he’d stolen from Steve’s bag, “that shirt’s not going to give you much protection.”

A moment later, bullets began bouncing off the door frame only to stop when four arrows went flying past.

_“Clear,”_ Clint announced.

Steve led the way out, followed by Bucky, then Natasha. They made for the exit but were intercepted by another dozen HYDRA soldiers who ran up from a lower level of the facility. Steve dove behind a crate while Natasha and Bucky remained stuck behind a tank. Steve quickly scaled the crate and attacked from above, dropping down on the soldiers and punching his way through their ranks.

_“Cap, you’ve got six more coming from the west corner,”_ Clint said.

_“Clint and I can handle it,”_ Natasha said, _“Sarge, help Cap.”_

“Copy.” 

Bucky flung the shield around the tank, it whizzed passed Steve and ricocheted off a soldier before flying into Steve’s hand. He flung it at another soldier, trusting Bucky to catch it after it bounced while he shot two more and kicked another in the sternum. Steve flipped back neatly to doge another wave of bullets before darting close enough to engage two at once in hand-to-hand combat. 

As he kicked and spun he saw soldiers falling around him, taken out by Bucky’s well aimed shots and Steve reveled for a moment at how much he’d missed this. The perfect synchronization of he and Bucky fighting together. The way the shield moved seamlessly between them back and forth like it was molded to both their hands. The way he intrinsically knew that he didn’t have to worry about the guy coming at him from behind because he’d be dead before he took another step but that he had to take out the one on the right side of the tank because Bucky didn’t have a clean shot. 

It was a rare thing, to trust your partner unconditionally. To know them so well you might as well be one being. Steve let his guard fall as the last soldier went down with a bullet to his chest and found himself eye to eye with Bucky. They were both panting, gun in Steve’s hand and shield in Bucky’s, looking at each other with bright eyes. Steve couldn’t help the victorious laugh that bubbled up in him and from the grin that stretched across Bucky’s face in answer, Steve knew Bucky was thinking the same thing.

They were the perfect team.

Steve’s laugh died down but his eyes remained locked to Bucky’s. He couldn’t look away. There was blood high on Bucky’s cheekbone and a flush across his skin. His eyes shone in the dim light and Steve realized he wanted to push Bucky up against the tank and kiss him. He saw Bucky’s eyes flick down to his lips and realized, with a flash of heat, that again, Bucky was thinking the same thing he was.

“Okay, that was hot,” Clint’s voice broke through the silence.

“Agreed,” Natasha added.

Steve and Bucky quickly stepped away from each other and faced Clint and Natasha a little guiltily, despite the fact that they hadn’t done anything. Natasha raised an eyebrow at them and Clint snickered into his hand.

_“If you guys are done in there, Hulk and I could use a hand,”_ Tony shouted through the coms.

“ _NO HAND,”_ Hulk roared, _“SMASH!”_

A loud crunch echoed through the facility as Steve motioned for everyone to head for the exit.

_“Oh, never mind,”_ Tony amended, _“take your time.”_

“Inside is clear, heading out now,” Steve informed them, “Natasha?”

“On it.”

Natasha pulled a grenade out of her tactical belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it into a crate of explosives as they escaped.

“Clear out!” Steve yelled, running straight past the HYDRA soldiers still scrambling to avoid Hulk’s fists with Bucky at his side and Clint and Natasha behind him. Overhead, Tony flew past, hovering at hundred yards out to wait for them to catch up. As they sprinted, Steve realized Bucky was keeping pace with him. Steve sped up. So did Bucky. They quickly left Clint and Natasha in the dust as they raced back toward the quinjet even after they heard the explosives go off. As they reached the jet, Steve slowed to a walk. Bucky took a few extra yards to slow down, hopping a little to keep off his wounded leg.

“You never said the serum made everything feel so easy,” Bucky mused as he leaned heavily against the quinjet door.

“I wasn’t sure it would be the same for someone who was healthy to begin with,” Steve said, coming to rest beside him, “I thought maybe this is just what it’s like for everyone else.”

“Nah,” Bucky said, not even panting, “this is pretty great, even with two bullet wounds. I feel like I could run another ten miles.”

“You’d probably only make it about two more miles before the blood loss started getting to you,” Steve said with a grin and a shrug, “might not want to test that theory though.”

“Got you back in one piece, Sarge?” Tony called, landing a few feet in front of them with a metallic clang.

“Mostly,” Bucky replied with a little salute.

“You guys couldn’t slow down a little?” Clint and Natasha came running towards them, both sweating buckets.

“My legs injured, Barton,” Bucky whined with an exaggerated pout, “you want me to stand around and let it get infected?”

“Oh, yeah because sprinting with gunshot wounds is such a bright idea,” Clint retorted.

“Guys?” A distant shout came.

“Over here!” Natasha called back.

A moment later a half clothed Bruce came jogging towards them.

“How’d the fight go?” He asked while Tony opened the door to the jet and got him a blanket.

“Quick, in-and-out,” Natasha told him, “no injuries, hostage rescued, and target eliminated. Piece of cake.”

“Oh, the best kind,” Bruce said with a small smile before collapsing on the bench in the jet and promptly falling asleep.

“He’s always a little sleepy after,” Tony told Bucky with a grin, “I guess turning into a giant green rage monster’ll do that to you.”

Bucky hummed agreeably before settling down next to Bruce, propping his leg up and letting his head fall back with a sigh. Steve stood in front of him, hand tangled in one of the straps hanging from the ceiling to help him keep his balance as Natasha took over piloting and steered them back toward the city.

The desire to press his lips against Bucky’s throat was growing by the second, exacerbated by the almost certain knowledge that Bucky would let him. Steve only managed to resist at the sound of Clint and Tony’s chatter behind him and the little glances Natasha kept throwing at him over her shoulder. Steve focused on the blood slowly draining from his arm as he held it above his head and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep his eyes to himself. By the time they landed, Steve’s entire arm was numb and he shook it out as Tony nudged Bruce awake. Steve offered the hand he still had feeling in to Bucky and helped him limp off the jet onto the landing strip where Fury and Maria were waiting for them.

“Have a nice trip?” Fury asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I brought it back, Fury,” Steve said with an unapologetic shrug, “one piece and everything.”

“You stole a jet, Captain,” Fury chided, eye turning on Bucky, “nice to have you back, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Director,” Bucky greeted with a lazy salute, “having stolen property back in one piece is actually quite an accomplishment for this one.”

He jabbed Steve in the side playfully.

“We know,” Maria said, smiling behind Fury’s back.

“Get out of here, all of you,” Fury said with a dismissive roll of his eye.

“Sir,” Steve interrupted as Fury began to walk off, “HYDRA isn’t going to stop trying to take Bucky back. He’s safe for now but they’ll just keep coming.”

Fury turned and gave Steve an oddly pleased smile.

“Then I suppose it’s time we wiped HYDRA off the map.”

“The fuck does that mean,” Clint mused as Fury disappeared into the building, his long black coat billowing behind him.

“It means the World Security Council just approved Project Freeze,” Maria told them, her pride palpable as she led them inside, “It gives us the authority and the means to find and destroy every HYDRA base on Earth. By this time next week they’re not going to have the time or resources to do anything but run.”

“Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard since 1941,” Bucky sighed, leaning more heavily against Steve as they squeezed into the elevator, “can I go home now?”

“Yes, Sarge,” Maria said with a grin, “you can go home.”

 

* * *

 

“Stevie?”

Steve looked up from his seat at the long wooden dining table he’d finally taken the time to unpack and saw Bucky standing on the stairs, looking sleepily rumpled in the pre-dawn light.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve said, shaking himself and forcing his tired eyes open.

“I woke up and you weren’t there.”

“Sorry,” Steve stood, coming around the table to meet him, “I thought I’d get started on the furniture.”

“Still having weird dreams?” Bucky asked as Steve nudged him back up the stairs.

“Not this time,” he replied softly, “I just couldn’t sleep.”

In truth, Steve was having a hard time keeping his feelings to himself now that he was aware of them. He wasn’t the sort of person to shy away from things so the second he and Bucky had got back to the brownstone he’d been gearing himself up to confess. But Bucky had needed to take care of his leg and had fallen asleep while Steve dressed it. Luckily, Bucky had already been in bed but then Steve had been left with the dilemma of where to sleep. He’d set up the bed in the room next door so there was no reason for him to stay with Bucky but the thought of waking up anywhere else made his heart clench. That, in combination with the growing anxiety about telling Bucky how he felt made it easy for Steve to rule out sleep altogether, opting instead to busy himself with assembling their new furniture.

“You haven’t been sleeping very much at all, you know,” Bucky said as he pulled Steve into the bedroom and pushed him toward the mattress.

Steve didn’t argue, he just collapsed into bed now that he’d been invited and sighed happily when Bucky slid in next to him. He wondered if now was a good time to say something.

“Go to sleep, Stevie.”

A cool metal hand brushed against his cheek.

“M’kay,” Steve mumbled, eyes already closing, “G’night.”

“It’s mornin’ already you mook.”

Steve kicked him gently under the covers, making him laugh.

“Night, Stevie.”

 

* * *

 

_“Stevie?”_

_Steve blinked blearily._

_“Heya, Stevie,” Bucky smiled down at him, his eyes looked raw and tired._

_“Bucky?” Steve’s voice was hoarse and painful._

_“You’ve been out for a couple days,” Bucky said, smoothing a hand over Steve’s forehead, “I think your fever’s going down though.”_

_A cup appeared at Steve’s lips and he sipped at it until it was empty._

_“How you feeling?” Bucky asked quietly, sitting on the edge of Steve’s bed and running a hand across his small chest._

_“Fine,” he mumbled, making himself cough a little._

_“You sound fine,” Bucky mused, “Stay in bed until tomorrow. Don’t want you getting up too soon and gettin’ sick again.”_

_“I’m fine,” Steve insisted, even as he pulled the blankets more tightly around him to keep the chill out._

_“Cold?” Bucky asked, looking over his shoulder to make sure the window was shut tight, “here, scotch over.”_

_Steve scooted and Bucky slid between him in the wall. It was a tight fit in the little twin bed but Bucky crawled under the covers and threw his arm over Steve’s waist, letting Steve tuck his head under Bucky’s chin. Pressed chest to chest, the size of the bed didn’t really matter._

_“Go to sleep, Stevie.”_

_“M’kay,” Steve mumbled, “G’night.”_

_“It’s mornin’ already you mook.”_

_Steve kicked him gently under the covers making him laugh. Steve snuggled closer and felt something press against the top of his head. For a moment, his feverish brain thought it might be a kiss. No, he reasoned, it was just Bucky getting comfortable. He wouldn’t kiss Steve._

_“Night, Stevie.”_

 

* * *

 

 

Steve woke to an empty bed. A pang of fear shot through him until he realized he could hear the shower running in the bathroom and he relaxed. He wondered if that was how Bucky felt every time he came looking for Steve in the early hours of the morning. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and blinked at the ceiling. It was still early, barely ten if Steve had to guess. He rolled over onto his stomach and felt that Bucky’s side of the bed had already gone cold. He sighed and resigned himself to getting up. He wandered downstairs in his sweats and contemplated making tea or something until he heard the shower shut off and Bucky returned to the bedroom. He was suddenly too nervous to eat or drink. He had to talk to Bucky, there was no way around it.

Steve had never been one to procrastinate but he found himself in the scalding shower instead of the bedroom before he could change his mind. Like a real strategist, he spent his time in there running through all the possible ways he could start the conversation and all the ways it could end from him blurting “I love you” to Bucky slamming a door in his face and never coming back. He ruled that scenario out pretty quickly, if only for his own peace of mind. Memories of the way Bucky had glanced at his lips and all the things he’d said over the years calmed him down and then the thought of all the girls Bucky’d seen during those years terrified him all over again.

Eventually, the hot water started to turn cold and Steve forced himself to climb out and dry off. He brushed his teeth and redressed in the sweats and t-shirt he’d slept in because this was a conversation didn’t want to have in a towel. He ran a hand though his wet hair and stared at himself in the mirror. He still looked tired but his face had more color in it and the water made his hair look less dead. Steve wondered if he should wait until he looked better and then reminded himself that Bucky’d seen him when he was dying of pneumonia about six times over so what was the point.

Steve took a breath, squared his shoulders, realized he was acting like he was about to go into battle, relaxed, and then squared himself again before walking out. Bucky was still in the bedroom, lying on his back in one of Steve’s shirts and some sweatpants, staring up at his phone. The morning sun was streaming through the windows, turning the whole bed into a giant sunspot that illuminated Bucky like a bath of golden light. He had one pant leg shoved up and the bandages Steve had placed just above his knee the night before were gone. There was barely even a mark from the bullets anymore. 

“Romanoff thinks she can beat me at hand-to-hand combat,” Bucky scoffed, typing rapidly, “As if.”

Steve sat down on his side of the bed and crossed his legs, his heart beating a mile a minute.

“And if she thinks she can take me that also means she thinks she can take you, so you might wanna jump in and defend your honor or whatever, Stevie.”

Bucky looked up when Steve didn’t respond.

“You okay? You look constipated,” he sat up, “did something happen? Who’s dead?”

“No ones dead!” Steve blurted, shaking his hands vigorously, “nothing happened! I’m not constipated.”

“Oh, okay,” Bucky relaxed, “so what gives?”

“I—uh,” Steve faltered.

He could feel his blush rising and his racing heart started to become overwhelming.

“Um—I—fuck.”

Steve buried his face in his hands. Why did this have to be so difficult? He was less than a minute in and the plan had already gone out the window.

“Whoa, Stevie, what’s the matter?” Bucky crawled closer, pulling Steve’s hands away from his face, “What’s going on?”

His eyes were wide with concern, bright blue in the sunlight, and he rubbed gentle circles against Steve’s palms. Steve cleared his throat and forced himself to speak.

“Do you remember—um— well, I’ve been remembering some things,” he began, “Like that time in London, just a few weeks after I found you, and I was getting ready to go to the pub with the Commandos and Peggy but I ended up staying with you instead. Do you remember that?”

Bucky pulled back a little, a crease appearing between his brows.

“Yeah,” he said cautiously, “I remember.”

“And then that time you hit me with Luca Moretti’s car,” Steve continued, “and you told me I was being distracting and we talked about the Arrow ads.”

A pink tinge appeared on Bucky’s cheeks and he let go of Steve completely.

“I guess you were right about me not being able to tell when people like me,” Steve said helplessly, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize—“

“Fuck, Steve, it’s fine,” Bucky interrupted desperately, “I shouldn’t have said that stuff. It’s not— it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Shit, I won’t make you sleep in here again and I’ll give your clothes back. We don’t have to talk about this, I swear, Stevie— I mean, Steve— I just—“

He stuttered to a halt, Steve just stared at him in stunned silence.

“Are you going to leave?” Bucky asked quietly.

He was so _resigned_ and Steve realized that for all his worries about being rejected, he had already done so to Bucky probably more times than he could remember.

“No! No, of course not,” Steve reached out for Bucky’s hands again but pulled back when Bucky’s hands twitched away, “I would never.”

“It’s okay if you want to,” Bucky said, not looking at Steve, “I know we said ‘until the end of the line’ but its just words, you don’t have to—“

“Bucky, stop,” Steve cut him off, “stop, just let me talk for a second, okay?”

Bucky fell silent, still staring intently at the floorboards like he wished he could melt between the cracks. Of all the ways Steve had pictured this going, he hadn’t imagined this.

“I’ve been an ass,” he sighed.

Bucky’s eyes jerked up and finally met his.

“When we were kids,” Steve began again, his voice shaking, “I realized that I liked you—that I liked you too much.”

Bucky’s eyes widened.

“We were so young and I didn’t know what to do or say about it,” Steve kept going, “All I knew was that I wanted to be with you all the time, but when you started chasing all the girls at school I realized it would never happen.”

Steve glanced up again and saw understanding start to dawn on Bucky’s face.

“You kept telling me about all the dates you went on and the stuff you’d do with those girls so I did my best to get over you,” Steve fidgeted with the duvet, picking at a loose thread, “I knew you didn’t like me like that so I buried my feelings and ignored them.”

Steve couldn’t meet Bucky’s eyes anymore.

“That’s why I was so oblivious before,” Steve said apologetically, “I just never thought you could want that with me.”

Silence fell as Steve finished. He felt like his throat had dried up. Like his entire being was on display and now all he could do was wait. He risked another glance at Bucky. He was staring at Steve like he was seeing him for the first time.

“You knew,” he whispered, “way back then?”

Steve nodded.

“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky scrubbed a hand against his face, reaching up to pull at his hair, “I didn’t know— god, if I had known.”

He laughed a little hysterically and dropped his head into his hands.

“I didn’t realize I wanted you until I was nearly twenty,” he admitted, “fuck, Steve, I must have made you feel like shit, talking that way about other people all the time.”

“It’s okay, Buck,” Steve said, shaking his head, “You didn’t know and I didn’t say anything.”

“You must have moved on by the time I put two and two together,” he continued, “God, and then I had the audacity to be pissed when you met Peggy, after everything I’d put you through.”

“At least you tried to tell me,” Steve insisted, “I mean, I think we were both a little dense.”

“I suppose.” Bucky let his hands fall but kept his head lowered as he sighed.

Steve stared at Bucky’s hands and wondered if he could touch them now. His fingers twitched against the duvet.

“I didn’t,” Steve said suddenly, “Get over you, I mean.”

Bucky stared up at him.

“I tried,” Steve continued uncertainty, “I think I managed to repress it pretty well but I never got over you.”

Steve swallowed, his eyes caught with Bucky’s.

“I think you might be it for me,” Steve whispered.

Steve saw Bucky’s breath catch. 

“Me too.”

Steve felt his heart skip a beat and he nudged his index finger forward until it brushed Bucky’s. Slowly, Bucky’s finger curled until the tips of their fingers were hooked around each other. Steve felt his heart kick up another impossibly fast notch. All they were doing was touching fingers and Steve felt like he was about to burst out of his skin. He didn’t want to move, he didn’t know what he would do if he did. So he just sat there, his entire being focused on the tiny spot where his skin touched Bucky’s. 

Bucky. The person he loved most in the world. The one he lost and mourned and found again. The person who just so happened to love him back.

Steve felt tears prick in his eyes but before he could even think about doing something about them Bucky was tackling him down onto the mattress. He wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and pressed their cheeks together. Steve threw his hands around Bucky’s waist to catch him and accepted his weight pressing down on him like a blanket. Bucky was so warm and so solid in his hands and he smelled like home. Steve closed his eyes and breathed him in.

“We sure are a pair, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Steve laughed giddily, “a pair of idiots.”

“That’s what they always said,” Bucky said, pushing himself up into his elbows and looking down at Steve, his eyes roaming Steve’s face like he couldn’t get enough, “but better late than never, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed breathlessly.

Bucky kept staring down at him. His metal hand came up and brushed lightly against Steve’s cheek. Steve’s eyes fluttered and when he opened them again he couldn’t help but glance down at Bucky’s lips. Bucky swallowed nervously. His head dipped down until he was hovering only an inch away.

“Stevie,” he whispered, his hand fisting it self desperately in Steve’s shirt.

Steve could feel the brush of Bucky’s breath against his lips. He’d never wanted something this badly before in his life.

“Kiss me,” Steve whispered back.

After years of waiting, Bucky finally leaned down and sealed their lips together. Steve sighed into the kiss and felt warmth flood him to his core. He got a hand in Bucky’s hair and held him close as he pushed up against his lips with everything that he had. The vibrations of Bucky’s moan against his skin send waves of heat down his spine. His hips pressed up against Bucky’s and their kiss finally broke as they both gasped.

“Fuck,” Bucky swore breathlessly, biting his bottom lip as Steve rolled his hips again.

“Is this—“ Steve’s breath caught as he felt Bucky’s hardening length press against his through their sweatpants, “is this too much? Is this too fast?”

Bucky grabbed Steve by the back of the neck and half kissed, half bit him in between his words.

“It’s been nearly a hundred fucking years, I’m ready if you are.”

“Yes,” Steve sighed with relief that they were still on the same page, “fuck, yes.”

Bucky shifted to straddle him properly and their next grind had Steve seeing stars.

“How do you want to— what do you want, Bucky?” Steve gasped, shoving his hand up Bucky’s shirt, feeling every clench of his muscles as they rocked together.

“Want you,” Bucky groaned against his lips.

“Yeah, I got that part,” Steve jibed, earning himself another bite as Bucky began thoroughly exploring Steve’s mouth, “I meant—“

“I know what you meant,” Bucky whispered against Steve’s cheek as he caught his breath, “let me think.”

He took a moment to pull his shirt over his head and then pull up Steve’s before lying back down, pressing their chests together and running his hands up and down Steve’s sides. The metal hand was cool and smooth, its light touch sending shivers across Steve’s skin when it hit his ticklish spots.

“What did you think about when we were teenagers?” Bucky asked, “how did you imagine it?”

Steve froze. He honestly hadn’t thought about it much. He usually cut himself off before his mind wandered too far down that path, for his own sanity more than anything else. Yet at Bucky’s words an image appeared in his mind all the same. It was Bucky, spread out underneath him, hands pinned to the mattress and Steve’s own thighs, skinny and pale, on either side of Bucky’s hips. Steve squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.

“That good, huh?” Bucky teased, biting at the curve of Steve’s jaw, “show me.”

Steve narrowed his eyes at Bucky who braced himself eagerly. He grabbed Bucky around the waist and flipped them over, climbing over Bucky’s knees, pressing his ass against Bucky’s lap. The pleased sigh was already halfway out of Bucky’s mouth when Steve grabbed his wrists and pinned them up by the headboard.

“Like this,” he hissed, as Bucky’s sigh morphed into a moan.

“Jesus christ,” Bucky groaned as he tested his hands against Steve’s grip, “I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve always liked being on top, no matter the situation.”

“What about you?” Steve asked, loosening his grip and sliding his hands down Bucky’s arms, “what do you like?”

“I like everything,” he said against Steve’s mouth.

“That’s not an answer.”

“I like giving as good as I get,” Bucky continued.

Steve felt Bucky’s fingers start to trail down his back, lower than either of them had ventured yet.

“I like using my fingers.”

He tugged at the waistband of Steve’s sweatpants, sliding them down an inch.

“I like watching them work.”

Bucky’s fingers slid under the fabric and over the round swell of Steve’s ass.

“I like touching you, Stevie,” he sighed.

Steve fisted both hands into the sheets on either side of Bucky’s head and pulled his hips away from Bucky just to keephimself from coming right then and there.

“Fucking hell,” Steve bit out, spreading his knees further apart as Bucky’s hands crept down another inch, squeezing as they went.

“Is that a yes?” Bucky asked.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Steve groaned, “hurry up.”

The pad of Bucky’s finger sank down and pressed against Steve’s hole. Steve shivered, dropping his head against Bucky’s shoulder.

“Stevie,” Bucky nudged Steve’s side with his metal elbow, “My bag, over there. Front pocket.”

Steve reached over the edge of the mattress and dragged Bucky’s backpack closer, quickly undoing the zipper and pulling out a small bottle of lube.

“Why the fuck do you have this?” Steve asked as he handed it over.

“Tony,” Bucky replied flicking the cap open with his thumb, “he said it was for the arm and for, quote: ‘I don’t know, other stuff’.”

“God,” Steve grumbled, “he definitely thinks we’ve been doing this for weeks.”

“Years, probably,” Bucky corrected, “Whatever, I hope he doesn’t expect a fruit basket or some shit.”

Whatever reply Steve was going to give died on his lips as Bucky’s hand returned, cool and slick this time, sliding under Steve’s sweatpants to press lightly against his rim. Steve arched his back and felt the tip of Bucky’s finger slide in.

“Fuck,” Bucky breathed, “Stevie, you gotta let me do this properly or I’m gonna fucking explode.”

Steve laughed shakily and nodded against Bucky’s collarbone. He let Bucky turn them over, spreading Steve out on his back before reaching for Steve’s waistband again, pulling them off with one smooth motion and settling himself between Steve’s legs.

It was nothing Bucky hadn’t seen before and yet Steve felt another blush flaring up on his cheeks. The sunlight was still streaming across the bed, making him feel like he was lying in a giant spotlight. He felt like he was 5’4 again, jealous of all the gorgeous people Bucky met and wishing he could measure up.

“Hey,” Bucky’s voice brought Steve back out of his head.

There was a little furrow between his eyes.

“You with me, Stevie?” He asked quietly, leaning back down to rub his nose against Steve’s cheek.

“Yeah.”

“We can stop.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Okay, you know I wanted you before the serum, right?”

Steve stared up at Bucky and felt his heart swell.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Bucky smiled and kissed him, parting his lips while Steve ran his hands across as much of Bucky’s skin as he could reach. He heard the cap of the lube click again and a moment later Bucky’s finger slowly began circling Steve’s hole until he spread his legs as wide as they’d go, breaking the kiss so he could bite his lip as Bucky leaned back, planted his metal hand on Steve’s hip, and watched his own finger slide in to the last knuckle. Steve twisted his hands in the sheets again, this time to keep himself from jerking his own cock as fast as he could. His breath sped up as Bucky’s finger started sliding in and out, twisting on each thrust as it explored Steve’s body. He pulled his finger all the way out and when it returned there were two of them. Steve couldn’t help the little whimper he let out when they pushed passed his rim and settled deep inside him and he had no control at all over the loud high pitched moan that fell from his lips when Bucky curled his fingers just the right way and Steve felt a shot of pleasure burst through him.

“There we go,” Bucky whispered, starting to pump his fingers in earnest.

Steve moaned with every thrust, squirming against the sheets like he couldn’t decide if he wanted ride Bucky’s fingers as hard as possible or shove down on Bucky’s hand to keep his ass filled for as long as he could. He felt his cock twitch as he opted for the first choice and started rolling his hips in time with Bucky’s fingers.

“Fucking hell,” Bucky swore quietly, shoving his free hand down his own pants as he pressed a third finger into Steve’s ass, hardly blinking as he watched the slide of his fingers.

“Enjoying the view?” Steve laughed breathlessly.

“You have no fucking idea,” Bucky replied, leaning down and licking across Steve’s hipbone, biting and sucking the skin of his inner thighs as he got closer and closer to his fingers. Steve realized that if Bucky kept this up he would come in the next three seconds. He quickly untangled his hands from the sheets and grabbed Bucky by the hair, pulling him up and swallowing his moan before flipping them over.

“Wait—ah—Stevie.”

Steve ripped Bucky’s pants off and paused with his hand around Bucky’s ankle. Bucky pulled him back up the bed and returned his hand between Steve’s legs.

“Don’t want to hurt you,” Bucky said, pushing his fingers back in, “let me just make sure—“

“I’m ready, Buck,” Steve insisted, pushing Bucky’s hand away and straddling his hips, “Was ready 85 years ago.”

“You’re an impatient little shit, that’s what you are,” Bucky breathed as he gave in and let Steve move him around.

“Shut up, you love that about me.”

“I do not.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“Only a little.”

“Liar.”

Bucky’s face broke into a grin and he laughed as Steve squeezed another dollop of lube onto his hand.

“Yeah, you got me,” Bucky admitted just before Steve got his hand around Bucky’s thick cock and stroked.

Bucky’s mouth fell open and his grip on Steve’s thighs went tight as Steve spread the lube around.

“If you want this to happen you’re gonna have to hurry the fuck up,” Bucky hissed through his teeth.

“Now who’s being impatient?”

“Shut up and fuck me.”

Steve laughed and lifted himself up onto his knees, wiping his hand on the sheets before planting them on Bucky’s firm chest. He lay the tops of his feet on Bucky’s thighs and felt Bucky’s hard dick press behind his balls. Steve arched his back until the tip was lined up with his hole.

His eyes met Bucky’s and they stared at each other, the sweat on their skin making them both glow in the morning sun. A smile quirked at Bucky’s lips and he let go of Steve’s thighs to tangle their fingers together, letting Steve’s weight trap his hands against the mattress. Steve could see the anticipation in Bucky’s eyes and he smiled back helplessly as he rolled his hips.

He held Bucky’s eyes until the stretch was too much and his head fell back with a silent moan as the widest part of Bucky’s cock finally pushed inside him. Steve sank down on shaking knees until he was seated firmly on Bucky’s lap, gasping shallow breaths and gripping Bucky’s hands like a vice.

“Bucky.”

“I got you.”

Slowly, Steve rose, feeling the stretch again as Bucky’s dick slid out of him, and then shoved back down in one smooth motion. Bucky’s gasping moans were better than any fantasy Steve had ever dared indulge. They pushed him to rock back harder and faster as Bucky’s dick hit him in just the right spot again and again and again. 

“Yeah, Stevie,” Bucky sighed, “just like that.”

Bucky planted his feet on the mattress and started meeting Steve thrust for thrust.

“Just like that.”

It was perfect. Steve dropped to his elbows and pushed Bucky’s hands farther up the bed, catching his lips in another hot kiss as the sound of their slapping skin and tiny desperate sighs filled the room. He trapped Bucky’s wrists with one hand used the other to hold Bucky down just below his collarbone, his fingers resting against the hollow of his throat. He used the leverage to bear down harder on Bucky’s cock until Bucky’s legs gave out and he could do nothing but lie there and let Steve ride him. 

Looking down at Bucky’s gasping face, trapped between his pinned arms, Steve felt completely and utterly satisfied— and he hadn’t even come yet. He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face at the sight. Bucky stared up at him, jaw slack and face flushed.

“Stevie,” Bucky said suddenly, “Stevie, I’m gonna come.”

“Yes,” Steve sighed, moving faster and sitting up to make sure Bucky was buried to the hilt on each thrust, “come on, come on, come on.”

Bucky followed Steve up, wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist, his nails digging into his back. Bucky pressed his face against Steve’s neck and Steve felt Bucky’s teeth bite down hard as his body went rigid. A long muffled moan reverberated against his skin and Steve felt warmth flood inside him as he kept thrusting his hips as hard as he could. That was enough to send Steve hurtling toward the edge. His brutal pace stuttered and his cock, rubbing against Bucky’s abs with every thrust, twitched desperately between them. Steve was about to reach down and finish himself off with his hand when Bucky shoved him onto his back and grabbed him behind each knee, forcing his legs up toward his chest and brutally thrusting into him once, twice, three times. Steve threw his hands over his head and clutched the edge of the mattress to keep his body in place as Bucky’s thrusts sent his orgasm ripping through him like a tidal wave. 

For a brief eternity, Steve lay in perfect bliss.

Dizzily, Steve felt the tight grip on his legs loosen. He felt sweat running down his calves as they relaxed onto the sheets. He felt Bucky slide out of him and the wave of hot come and lube that followed. He felt Bucky’s face press again his chest as he collapsed with a sigh. 

Steve felt fucking victorious. 

He tangled his fingers in Bucky’s hair and laughed, deep and satisfied.

“That was—“ Steve breathed.

“Yeah," Bucky agreed.

“I mean—“

“I know.”

They fell silent, panting together in the sunlight.

“Let’s do it again.”

 

* * *

 

_“And here’s the pitch from Kelly… swing and a miss for Estrada! That’s the game folks! The L.A. Dodgers beat the New York Yankees 3-2. Some great pitches by Kelly—“_

Bucky put the TV on mute and watched the players line up to congratulate each other with a scowl.

“You shouldn’t watch these games,” Sam said from his perch on the arm of the sofa, “they only upset you.”

“What’s the problem, Bucko?” Tony asked, flopping down into an armchair with a tall cup of spiked cocoa.

“I don’t know who to fucking root for,” Bucky complained, “The Brooklyn Dodgers got fucking traded to L.A. so now I have to watch them play against actual New York teams and it pisses me off.”

“So just don’t watch it,” Natasha said with an eye roll as she perused one of Steve’s many sketchbooks.

“I can’t just _not_ watch it!” Bucky said, throwing his hands up dramatically, “it’s baseball!”

“These are reruns of last years games though,” Bruce said, “you can just check the scores online.”

“Yeah, Sarge,” Clint added, “it’s 2019, just look that shit up.”

“That’s not the point,” Bucky sighed, hugging a pillow to his chest and sinking into the sofa grumpily.

“Have you tried hockey?” Tony suggested, “Basketball? Curling?”

Steve hid his smile behind his own mug of hot chocolate.

It had been five months since Bucky had been found and three and a half since HYDRA had been destroyed for good. It had been two months since SHIELD announced Bucky’s return to the world and four days later Steve had his first TV appearance in which he revealed that he and Bucky were a couple. A month after that Bucky was cleared to join the Avengers and the first pictures of him and Steve kissing in their uniforms after a battle made it onto the internet. 

He’d started doing public appearances for the Avengers, he gave interviews condemning the use of his image to push conservative values, and advocated for LGBT rights every chance he got. He convinced the Smithsonian to give him and Bucky back their personal stuff in exchange for all the ridiculous star-spangled outfits he’d had to wear over the years that he never wanted to lay eyes on again. 

Two weeks ago, Steve had caved and got himself a twitter. The first thing he posted was a picture that Bucky had taken of him standing in a mess of half assembled patio furniture holding a pamphlet of instructions upside down while he tried to remember how to read French with the caption “My Ma didn’t raise a quitter, but she sure did raise a fool”. It had very quickly become a meme, spurring Tony to post his own ridiculous photo in an attempt to regain his self-proclaimed status as the most relatable Avenger. 

Last week some representatives from a men’s fitness magazine had come to him with an offer to put him on their front cover only to have Bucky burst out laughing while telling them that Steve had never properly exercised a day in his life. Steve had laughed too and told them they could come back if their stance on performance enhancing drugs ever did a sharp 180. 

Steve’s favorite part of the whole thing was the new closeness within the team that hadn’t existed before. Now that Steve had decided to start being himself the others had caught on and started dropping their own masks too. It turned out that Tony had a secret knitting obsession and now Steve had a pair of very itchy socks. Clint had a dog he hadn’t told anyone about who had turned into the teams unofficial mascot. Even Natasha had started casually dropping little facts about herself in between punches during training or right before she had to jump out of a plane during a mission.

Steve and Bucky finished furnishing the brownstone. They’d spent hours perusing the internet and some of the shops in the neighborhood for homey throw blankets and soft pillows to fill the space and once the place was complete they sent out a message to all the Avengers for a celebratory team dinner. Steve had been uncharacteristically nervous about inviting the team over. Intellectually, he knew that the space was for all of them and that he and Bucky probably should have returned to Stark Tower ages ago but he was having a hard time saying goodbye. He and Bucky had put a lot of heart into the place and they’d grown to love the quiet neighborhood and the privacy it gave them, even with Darcy and the Maximoff twins coming in and out every other day. 

Luckily though, the team seemed to love it, including Thor, who’d finally dropped by to meet Bucky and brag about Jane Foster’s Nobel prize nomination. Even Tony had abandoned his usual partiality to luxury long enough to give Steve and Bucky a nod of approval. Now they lay sprawled across the living room in a post dinner haze, arguing about sports and Steve knew that a year ago he hadn’t thought he could ever be so happy.

“Dude, you’re glowing,” Sam remarked as he passed Steve in the doorway to get more snacks.

“It’s the sex!” Bucky shouted at Sam’s retreating back, earning himself a groan from Clint, a booming laugh from Thor, and a high five from Natasha.

Steve laughed and stole Sam’s spot on the arm of the couch. He knew he looked good. He was living his happiest life, he had a cup of hot cocoa warming his hands, and he was in love with his best friend. Life couldn’t get much better.

“I have a confession!” Tony announced, cutting Clint off mid sentence, “well, consider it a housewarming present.”

“Oh, this is going to be good,” Sam remarked, plopping down on the rug with a new bowl of pretzels.

“Here you go,” Tony pulled a manila folder out of the coat he’d thrown over the back of the armchair and tossed it to Steve, “it’s for both of you.”

Steve slid down onto the cushions next to Bucky so he could watch as Steve unhooked the clasp and pulled out the papers inside. It was the deed to the brownstone with Steve’s name written neatly across the top.

“I lied about buying this place for the team,” Tony said, “I sort of got it for you guys.”

Steve looked up at Tony in stunned silence.

“W—What?” Steve finally choked out, eyes flicking back and forth between Tony and the paperwork in his hands.

“Oh, come on, Cap,” Tony said, waving his hand dismissively, “like SHIELD would cough up the the funds to buy expensive brownstone in downtown Brooklyn. I told them to bring you guys here when the Tower was compromised because I’d already got the place for you.”

“But why?” Bucky asked incredulously.

“Because Cap was miserable,” Tony shrugged, “I could tell he hated the tower and Manhattan and all the flashing lights even before you turned up, Sarge. So I found this place; close to your old neighborhood but far enough away in case you didn’t want to go back there, an art store down the street, a little grocery store so you don’t have to go to the supermarket, and I left it empty so you guys could decorate it yourselves. It’s perfect, right?”

Steve felt tears prickling at his eyes as the rest of the Avengers shared knowing smiles, except for Thor, who just looked happily confused. He placed his hot cocoa gently on the coffee table and handed the paperwork to Bucky before standing up and pulling Tony into a bone crushing hug. 

“Okay, don’t get all weepy on me, Cap,” he said, patting Steve’s shoulder awkwardly, “I’ll have you know I only did this to get your mopey butt out of my house.”

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve pulled back and clasped the back of Tony’s neck, briefly pressing their foreheads together, “You’re a true friend.”

Tony cleared his throat as Steve let him go and tried to hide his blush as he stepped away.

“Yeah—uh, don’t mention it.”

“Me next!” Bucky shouted, tossing the paperwork aside and slinking towards Tony like a wolf hunting a rabbit.

“No, no,” Tony backed away with his hands up defensively, “I see you, Barnes. You’re gonna shove your cold arm up my shirt, I’m not falling for that shit again.”

“Tony, I would never,” Bucky gasped in mock horror as he stalked Tony around the coffee table and towards the hallway, “I just want to give you a nice friendly hug.”

“No hugs necessary, pal. I accept your thanks and—“

Tony made a break for the stairs and Bucky gave chase. A thump, followed by Tony’s shrill shriek, reverberated through the brownstone. A moment later, Bucky came bounding back down the stairs looking extremely pleased with himself and he plopped back down at Steve’s side.

“This is our house,” Bucky said, smiling so brightly he looked like a kid again.

“It is.” Steve grinned back.

Bucky pulled him forward by the back of the neck and kissed him like they had all the time in the world.

 

—

 

Steve blinked awake slowly. He sighed against the back of Bucky’s neck and tightened his grip until Bucky’s naked back was pressed more firmly against Steve’s skin.

This is the best way to wake up, Steve thought, smiling into Bucky’s warmth.

He pressed a kiss to Bucky’s nape and tucked his face away from the light of sunrise, content to sleep his way through the morning with Bucky wrapped safely in his arms.

 


End file.
